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(VIDEO-AT-LINK)President Barack Obama slammed Republican senators who penned a letter attempting to warn Iran that any pending nuclear agreement will face their scrutiny, claiming they were aligning themselves with Iranian "hard-liners." "I think it's somewhat ironic to see some members for Congress wanting to make common cause with the hard-liners in Iran. It's an unusual coalition," Obama said Monday ahead of a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk. "I think what we're going to focus on right now is actually seeing whether we're going to get a deal or not. Once we do, if we do, we'll be able...

It’s safe to say that no president in modern times has had his legitimacy questioned by the opposition party as much as Barack Obama. But as his term in office enters its final phase, Republicans are embarking on an entirely new enterprise: They have decided that as long as he holds the office of the presidency, it’s no longer necessary to respect the office itself. Is that a bit hyperbolic? Maybe. But this news is nothing short of stunning: A group of 47 Republican senators has written an open letter to Iran’s leaders warning them that any nuclear deal they...

As North Korea continues to develop both nuclear weapons and the missile technology to carry them, pressure on South Korea to take preemptive military action will gradually rise. At some point, North Korea may have so many missiles and warheads that South Korea considers that capability to be an existential threat to its security. This is the greatest long-term risk to security and stability in Korea, arguably more destabilizing than a North Korean collapse. If North Korea does not arrest its nuclear and missile programs at a reasonably small, defensively-minded deterrent, then Southern elites will increasingly see those weapons as...

It was almost a funny moment . . . until you realized that members of the press were openly laughing at the fecklessness of the ostensible leader of the free world. On today's Morning Joe, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, his voice occasionally cracking with emotion, repeatedly insisted that President Obama would use military force if necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Andrea Mitchell eventually had enough, saying in a devastating aside "ask Bashir al Assad," an allusion of course to how President Obama ran away from his red line in Syria. Joe Scarborough laughingly joined in,...

Not sure why he’s mumbling about “viable alternatives” when the refrain from his own team over the past 24 hours, starting with Susan Rice, is that a bad deal with Iran is worse than no deal, which is precisely Netanyahu’s point. Bibi’s plan is clear enough, though: Keep the pressure on Tehran by keeping sanctions in place until they’re willing to give up more than just the 10-year temporary freeze that Obama’s currently asking for. O also complained here to the press that there was nothing new in Netanyahu’s speech, which is true — for a reason. Double-talk from...

Operatives of a secretive Iran-backed terrorist network in Turkey scouted the area hosting a radar site in Malatya's Kürecik district that is part of a NATO early warning radar system, an ongoing investigation has revealed. According to an 854-page police investigation on the Tawhid-Salam terror network obtained by Today's Zaman, witness testimony provided to the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor's Office on March 22, 2013 indicated that suspects tied to Iranian intelligence had collected information about Kürecik. The witness said many front companies with the cover of legitimate businesses such as real estate agencies or bookstores had been established in Malatya by...

Susan Rice told AIPAC It was "neither realistic nor achievable" to expect Iran to stop enriching uranium: "We cannot let a totally unachievable ideal stand in the way of a good deal. I know that some of you will be urging Congress to insist that Iran forgo its domestic enrichment capacity entirely," Rice told AIPAC, as the crowd broke in to chear. "But, but, but as desirable as that would be, it is neither realistic nor achievable."

President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, on Monday recalled her first visit to Israel, speaking at the AIPAC policy conference. […] Washington would like to see a “viable, sovereign Palestinian state living side by side with a Democratic, Jewish state of Israel,” she added. […] A nuclear Iran is a threat to Israel and is also an “unacceptable threat to the United States,” stressed Rice, who then stressed, “I want to be very clear: a bad deal is worse than no deal, and if that is the choice there will be no deal.” […] Referring to the interim...

Sixty-one years ago on an island in the South Pacific, scientists and military officers, fishermen and Marshall Islands natives observed first-hand what Armageddon would be like. And it almost killed them all. The Atomic Energy Commission code-named the nuclear test Castle Bravo. The March 1, 1954 experiment was the first thermonuclear explosion based on practical technology that would lead to a deliverable H-bomb for the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command—part of the Operation Castle series of tests needed to manufacture the high-yield weapons. Bravo was the worst radiological disaster in American atomic testing history—but the test provided information that led...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the midst of a heated reelection campaign. Yet he is traveling 5,900 miles to give a speech before a joint meeting of Congress on March 3 — just two weeks before Israelis go to the polls. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), working with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, a former Republican political operative who renounced his U.S. citizenship, extended the invitation in a clear effort to undermine the president while the United States and its five partners engage in tough negotiations with Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear...

An Iranian dissident group known for exposing key aspects of Iran’s secret nuclear work claims it now has evidence of “an active and secret parallel nuclear program” operated by Tehran. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), also known as the MEK, said in a report released Tuesday it has found concrete evidence of an “underground top-secret site currently used by the Iranian regime for research and development with advanced centrifuges for uranium enrichment,” according to a copy of the findings. The NCRI, an Iranian opposition group, is known for making big reveals about clandestine nuclear work in Tehran,...

GENEVA (AP) — The United States and Iran are working on a two-phase deal that clamps down on Tehran's nuclear program for at least a decade before providing it leeway over the remainder of the agreement to slowly ramp up activities that could be used to make weapons.

Russia's top general said Friday that a strong nuclear arsenal will ensure military superiority over the West as Moscow forges ahead with a multi-billion dollar plan to modernize its forces by 2020. Russia, facing a likely recession because of a fall in oil prices and sanctions over Ukraine, must deal with new forms of Western aggression, including economic confrontation, said General Valery Gerasimov. But despite the deep economic woes, he said the Russian military would receive more than 50 new intercontinental nuclear missiles this year. "Support for our strategic nuclear forces to ensure their high military capability combined with ......

In the midst of controversy over the Israeli prime minister's plans to address Congress next month, a researcher has won the release of a decades-old Defense Department report detailing the U.S. government's extensive help to Israel in that nation's development of a nuclear bomb. "I am struck by the degree of cooperation on specialized war making devices between Israel and the US," said Roger Mattson, a former memer of the Atomic Energy Commission technical staff. The 1987 report, "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations," compares the key Israeli facilities developing nuclear weapons to Los Alamos and Oak Ridge...

Has the U.S. already conceded a new era of nuclear proliferation? The Feb 10 Wall Street Journal editorial asked “Has the U.S. already conceded a new era of nuclear proliferation?” and concluded that “Mr. Obama is so bent on an Iran deal that he will make any concession to get one.” As we should know by now, President Obama has no negotiating skills and even less understanding of the world the U.S. used to lead by virtue of its military power and democratic values. If he succeeds in getting a deal, absent Congress doing anything about it, the Wall Street...

Baghdad, As-Sabah , July 21, Page 1 The official sources at the ministry of interior and the national security advisor department have refrained commenting on the news of seizing three missiles of nuclear heads in the course of arresting Khudir al- Dori the former leader at the dissolved Baath party.Notably, Iraqi political sources on anonymity affirmed that the detaining of al- Dori by the Iraqi security departments resulted in the seize of three nuclear heads missiles .The sources indicated that Khudir al- Dori occupied top party and security posts during ex-regime. Al-Dori death announced after the collapse of the regime...

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has warned that Russia was increasingly trigger happy about using its nuclear weapons. Mr Fallon spoke out as Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande arrived in Moscow for crunch talks on the crisis in Ukraine. The Defence Secretary said Britain must update its nuclear arsenal in response to Russia’s war-mongering. ******** Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, he said the Kremlin’s military planners may have “lowered the threshold” for the use of nuclear weapons. ******** His comments came as David Cameron was slammed for failing to be at the table for the talks between the German Chancellor,...

Considering that he has given our enemy Iran 80% of what they want in negotiations that were supposed to curtail their nuclear enrichment program, you bet I would. The guy is a pushover and if I played my cards right, I might end up walking off the lot with a free car. According to Channel 10 in Israel, Israeli officials believe that the American president is so desperate for a deal, he will give away the store — and American and Israeli security — in his quest to “make history” with the Iranians. Jerusalem Post: Israeli officials told Channel 10...

U.N. gives mixed signals on Tehran cooperation as nuclear talks intensifySenate Democrats on Tuesday backed away from a bipartisan push for immediate new sanctions on Iran, bowing to President Obama’s call not to undercut international talks to get Tehran to curb its nuclear programs in the coming weeks. The shift, announced Tuesday by Sen. Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat and one of the party’s outspoken hawks on Iran, came amid a series of mixed signals from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency over the question of whether Tehran was honoring promises to put its suspect nuclear programs on hold as...

While Iran’s march toward a nuclear bomb has provoked a major clash between the White House and Congress, Iran’s march toward conventional domination of the Arab world has been largely overlooked. In Washington, that is. The Arabs have noticed. And the pro-American ones, the Gulf Arabs in particular, are deeply worried. This week, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized control of the Yemeni government, heretofore pro-American. In September, they overran Sanaa, the capital. On Tuesday, they seized the presidential palace. On Thursday, they forced the president to resign. The Houthi have local religious grievances, being Shiites in a majority Sunni land. But...