Free Republic

Gold and silver on a tear overseas. Also, oil seems to be breaking $70 a barrel. Anticipating problems tomorrow or just commodities on an upswing?

Moscow, -The United States and Iran seem to have firmly set on a path that leads to the hell of war. There are hopes for the best - and I myself would be happy to be erring on the pessimistic side - but the way things look here and now, hopes are increasingly overshadowed by grim reality. Assertive statements on the American side and Gulf wargames on the Iranian side equally scream of muscle-flexing. Either side, while portraying the other as a new evil empire, is in fact perfectly aware of the danger the opponent poses to its core ideological...

Western defense sources and analysts told a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations that Britain and the United States are preparing for the prospect of air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities in late 2006 if diplomatic efforts at the United Nations Security Council are not succesful. "In just the past few weeks I've been convinced that at least some in the administration have already made up their minds that they would like to launch a military strike against Iran," Joseph Cirincione, director of the Washington-based Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said. At a seminar by...

TEHRAN, Iran - Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani said Tuesday that Iran has enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, a major development in nuclear fuel cycle technology, news agencies reported. Rafsanjani made the comment to the Kuwait News Agency during an interview in Tehran. "Iran has put into operation the first unit of 164 centrifuges, has injected (uranium gas) and reached industrial production," the Kuwait News Agency quoted Rafsanjani as saying. Iranian authorities had promised to announce "good nuclear news" on Tuesday.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranians will hear "good news" on their country's atomic programme on Tuesday night, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency. "After hearing all the good news tomorrow (Tuesday) night, Iranians should prostrate themselves before almighty God," he said in the northeastern city of Mashhad on Monday night. A conservative newspaper close to key officials has speculated the news would be that Iran had enriched uranium to the 3.5 percent level needed for fuel to run nuclear power stations. A reporter for the Arabic-language Al Arabiya satellite channel said Iran had...

Oil prices in international markets closely approached level of $68 per barrel. As RSN informs, price of oil to be supplied in May rose by $0.26 and totaled $67.65 per barrel at internet auction in New York. The price growth was caused by bidders' fears concerning Middle-Eastern oil supply after American media had reported George Bush should organize military action against Iran in connection with Tehran's refusal to stop nuclear fuel enrichment.

Before any major military operation, there are always tell tale signs. With all the talk about Israel or the United States bombing Iran's nuclear weapons program, it would be wise to check for the signs before taking the pundit prattle too seriously. 1. – The U.S. Navy stages a "surge exercise" and moves six carrier battle groups into the Indian Ocean. 2. – A "regularly scheduled exercise" moves Patriot Missile Batteies to Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. These exercises happen from time to time, but if they happen when other things are happening… 3. -- Movement of B-52 and B1B...

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that the Islamic Republic would give soon give “good news” about its nuclear advancements, the official state news agency reported. The United Nations Security Council adopted a “Presidential Statement” unanimously on March 29 giving Iran 30 days to suspend all of its uranium enrichment activities and resume its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

IRAN had shot down an unmanned surveillance plane in the south amid reports that the United States is planning military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a press report said today. "This plane had taken off from Iraq and was filming border areas," a report in the hardline Jumhuri Eslami newspaper said. It added the Islamic Republic "officials have obtained information from the plane system and recordings", without giving any further details. US publications reported over the weekend that the White House was studying options for military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities to pressure Tehran to abandon its controversial nuclear program....

The Bush administration is studying options for military strikes against Iran as part of a broader strategy of coercive diplomacy to pressure Tehran to abandon its alleged nuclear development program, according to U.S. officials and independent analysts. No attack appears likely in the short term, and many specialists inside and outside the U.S. government harbor serious doubts about whether an armed response would be effective. But administration officials are preparing for it as a possible option and using the threat "to convince them this is more and more serious," as a senior official put it. According to current and former...

Bush 'is planning nuclear strikes on Iran's secret sites' By Philip Sherwell in Washington (Filed: 09/04/2006) The Bush administration is planning to use nuclear weapons against Iran, to prevent it acquiring its own atomic warheads, claims an investigative writer with high-level Pentagon and intelligence contacts. President George W Bush is said to be so alarmed by the threat of Iran's hard-line leader, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, that privately he refers to him as "the new Hitler", says Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad Mahmoud Ahmedinejad: 'The new Hitler' Some US military chiefs...

This is an excellent article via RealClearPolitics.com from a source which has requested that we post no material from their site. Therefore, I am posting only a link to the article. The article is long and meaty.Link to unmentionable source

US 'planning to bomb Iran' THE Administration of President George Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key suspected nuclear weapons facility. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker magazine, said Mr Bush and others in the White House had come to view Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler. "That's the name they're using," a former senior intelligence official told the magazine. A senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted as saying that "this White House believes that the only way to solve the problem...

Notice here I said, “IRAN,” not “IRAQ.” Of course, we know all about Iraq since we are entering our 4th year of war with that country against its evil dictator, Saddam Hussein. America has lost over 2000 precious men and women from our armed forces in that span of time! So, what’s happening in Iran? For starters, the president of that country who is also a dictator was put into power by the radical, Islamic Mullahs. His name is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and he has made bold statements in the past months which have little to do with reality. For example,...