Iran Air Strikes Growing in Probability

Jan. 18, 2007 14:56
Iran discovers new onshore oil field
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEHRAN, Iran

Iran has discovered a new onshore oil field with an estimated reserve of two billion barrels, state-run television reported Thursday.

Hassan Behbahani, an official of the National Iranian Southern Oil Fields Co., said the discovery was made at the Bangestan layer of the Ab-Teymour oil field, in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, reported the state TV and Dow Jones Newswires.

The National Iranian Southern Oil Fields Co. is affiliated with the National Iranian Oil Co.
The newly discovered oil is in a layer around 40 square kilometers (15 square miles) wide, Behbahani said.

Iran, the second largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, and the fourth largest in the world, possesses 12 percent of the world's crude, with an estimated 130 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

Another reason why Bush will want to attack Iran.

That there will be war with Iran is now virtually guaranteed. The Bush Administration set out a clear casus belli over the weekend in two stories - masterworks of warmongering propaganda - appearing in two major bastions of the "liberal media."

xingu wrote:

Another reason why Bush will want to attack Iran.

Yes... that does make the crock about needing nuclear power for electricity that much tougher to buy, doesn't it?

U.S. President George W. Bush's administration said the preliminary results from the elections represented a setback for Ahmadinejad. ``It would seem that they're not the results that President Ahmadinejad would have hoped for,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters yesterday.

Huh? Iran hasn't attacked anyone? Surely you jest. Ever hear of Lebanon? Hezbollah was formed and is funded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This is common knowledge. Using your logic; did the United States attack Cambodia? How about Laos? How about the couple dozen other countries we didn't officially declare war on?

JONES INTRODUCES RESOLUTION REQUIRING CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL PRIOR TO USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAN

WASHINGTON, DC - Today Representative Walter B. Jones (R-NC) introduced H. J. Res. 14, a joint resolution concerning the use of force by the United States against Iran. The resolution requires that - absent a national emergency created by an attack, or a demonstrably imminent attack, by Iran upon the United States or its armed forces - the President must consult with Congress and receive specific authorization prior to initiating any use of military force against Iran.

Third, many perceive Hezbollah as a tool of Iran and Syria. Perry argued that, while Iran and Syria provide arms and support, Hezbollah is an independent organization. He noted Hezbollah's assertion that their relationship with Iran is a consultative alliance, much like Israel's relationship with the United States. He did not believe Iran ordered Hezbollah's recent attack on Israel.

Iran: Israel, US will soon die
Ahmadinejad: Be assured that the US and Israel will soon end lives
Yaakov Lappin
Published: 01.23.07, 22:24

Israel and the United States will soon be destroyed, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday during a meeting with Syria's foreign minister, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) website said in a report.

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… assured that the United States and the Zionist regime of Israel will soon come to the end of their lives," the Iranian president was quoted as saying.

"Sparking discord among Muslims, especially between the Shiites and Sunnis, is a plot hatched by the Zionists and the US for dominating regional nations and looting their resources," Ahmadinejad added, according to the report.

The Iranian president also directly tied events in Lebanon to a wider plan aimed at Israel's destruction. He called on "regional countries" to "support the Islamic resistance of the Lebanese people and strive to enhance solidarity and unity among the different Palestinian groups in a bid to pave the ground for the undermining of the Zionist regime whose demise is, of course, imminent."

Ahmadinejad has threatened the State of Israel with annihilation several times in recent months, and has recently added the US and Britain to the list of countries he says will be destroyed.

Syria's Foreign Minister, Wailed Mualem, accused the US of attempting to carry out a "massacre of Muslims" and of sowing "discord among Islamic faiths in the region."

Mualem called on "regional states to pave the ground for the establishment of peace and tranquillity… while preventing further genocide of the Muslims," the IRIB website said.

Report: Iran planning nuclear test with N. Korean assistance
By Haaretz Service and Reuters

The British newspaper the Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday, North Korea is helping Iran prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.

Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the Telegraph said, North Korea has agreed to share data and information derived from its test last October with Iran's nuclear scientists.

The Daily Telegraph quoted a senior European defense official as saying North Korea had invited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to study the results of North Korea's underground nuclear test to help Iran prepare its own test, possibly by the end of 2007.

According to the Telegraph, senior western military officials are concerned that North Korea's technical superiority will allow Iran to accelerate development of its nuclear weapon.

The European defense official told the Daily Telegraph that "the Iranians are working closely with the North Koreans to study the results of last year's North Korean nuclear bomb test."

He added that increased activity has been identified in Iranian nuclear facilities since the beginning of 2007.

"All the indications are that the Iranians are working hard to prepare for their own underground nuclear test," the official told the Telegraph.

The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on December 23 to impose sanctions on Iran's trade in sensitive nuclear materials and technology in an attempt to stop uranium enrichment work that could produce material that could be used in bombs.

Tehran says it is determined to continue its nuclear work, which it says is meant only for producing electricity.

The West suspects Iran's atomic work is part of a veiled nuclear arms program.

Blatham,
How conviently you ignore the threats made by Irans president.
Since he has made threats against the US and Israel,do we just ignore those threats or do we react to them?

Nuclear researcher Gary Samore, director of studies at the US council on Foreign Relations, told the Herzliya conference that Iran was still years away from being able to manufacture a bomb.

the Israeli armed forces would be further tested after their flawed campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. "The IDF are not as good as they think they are," said the British source. "It's an army of conscripts, commanded by reserve officers. Do you want to send conscripts into a war for the national interest?"

Some analysts say that in any case, miitary strikes would be counter-productive as they would only delay, and not stop, Iran's nuclear programme.

Comment
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Only the US hawks can save the Iranian president now

Ahmadinejad is failing to deliver for the poor and losing support, but he could yet survive because of the international threat

Ali Ansari
Tuesday January 30, 2007
The Guardian

The honeymoon is over. Iran's controversial president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has finally come unstuck. His popularity with the Iranian electorate - the subject of much incredulous analysis in 2005 - seems to be falling back at last, and the country's latest exercise in populism seems to be reaping the rewards of unfulfilled promises bestowed with little attention to economic realities.
Those realities have sharpened with the onset of UN sanctions. Ahmadinejad's casual dismissal of the sanctions has apparently earned him an unprecedented rebuke from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei - reflecting growing concerns among the political elite, including many conservatives, who are increasingly anxious at Iran's worsening international situation. As if to emphasise this point, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's defeated foe in the 2005 presidential election, echoed the condemnation of the president's public complacency, stressing that the threats against Iran were very real. Indeed, as a second US carrier group heads for the Gulf, there is belated questioning of the president's competence. His critics argue that not only does he appear to have courted the anger of the US, but his economic mismanagement and political nepotism have weakened the internal integrity of the Islamic republic - and proved to be a gift to Iran's enemies.

Ahmadinejad was elected on a platform of anti-corruption and financial transparency, and few appreciated how rapidly he was intoxicated with the prerogatives of his office. He very soon forgot the real help he had received in ensuring his election, basking in the belief that God and the people had put him in power. Ahmadinejad soon had a view for all seasons: uranium enrichment. Of course Iran would pursue this, and what's more, sell it on the open market at knockdown rates. As for interest rates, they were far too high for the ordinary borrower, so cut them immediately. And then there was the Holocaust.
None of this might matter so much, if the president had based his rhetorical flourishes on solid policies. But much to everyone's surprise nothing dramatic materialised. Ahmadinejad appeared to follow the dictum of his mentor, Ayatollah Khomeini - "Economics is for donkeys". Indeed, his policies could be defined as "anything but Khatami" (his predecessor). So the oil reserve fund was spent on cash handouts to the grateful poor, and the central bank, normally a bastion of prudence, was instructed to cut interest rates for small businesses.

These had the effect, as Ahmadinejad was warned, of pushing up inflation. The rationale for high interest rates was to encourage the middle classes to keep their money in Iran. Now they decided to spend it. Richer Iranians, worried about rising international tension, decided it would be prudent to ship their money abroad. This further weakened the rial, and added to inflationary pressure. In the past few months the prices of most basic goods have risen, hurting the poor he was elected to help. Moreover, far from investing Iran's oil wealth in infrastructure to create jobs, he announced recently that Iran's economy could support a substantially larger population, as if current unemployment was not a big enough problem.

Views such as these, along with his well publicised unorthodox religious convictions, have earned him the ridicule of political foes. What is more striking perhaps is the growing concern of those who should be considered his allies, especially in the parliament. These are people who supported him and expected results. They expected their populist protege to overturn the heresy of reform.

Much to their irritation, not only has Ahmadinejad singularly failed to consolidate and extend his political base, the recent municipal elections saw his faction defeated throughout the country. Traditional conservatives and reformists reorganised and hit back, ingeniously using technology to work round the various obstacles placed in front of them. Now, over the past weeks, with biting weather, shortages of heating fuel are further raising the political temperature, while his political opponents point to the burgeoning international crisis for which the globetrotting president seems to have no constructive answer. Talk has turned to impeachment.

Ironically, it is this very international crisis that may serve to save Ahmadinejad's presidency, a reality that the president undoubtedly understood all too well. As domestic difficulties mount, the emerging international crisis could at best serve as a rallying point, or at worst persuade Iran's elite that a change of guard would convey weakness to the outside world.

There can be little doubt that US hawks will interpret recent events as proof that pressure works, and that any more pressure will encourage the hawks further. Yet the reality is that while Ahmadinejad has been his own worst enemy, the US hawks are his best friends. Ahmadinejad's demise, if it comes, will have less to do with the international environment and more with his own political incompetence. There is little doubt that it will take more than a cosmetic change to get Washington to listen to Iran. But the real question mark, as the Baker-Hamilton commission found to its cost, is whether Washington is inclined to listen at all.

· Ali Ansari is director of the Iranian Institute at the University of St Andrews.

I cant praise Robert Fisk's book the Great War for Civilisation - the conquest of the middle east highly enough.

Anyone interested should read the chapter "The carpet weavers", to understand the Iranians.

They are patient, intelligent, industrious and moreover God is on their side. If they want nuclear weapons, nothing will stop them in the long run. Not war nor sanctions or even regime change. The trick is to make them feel they dont need nuclear weapons. Sadly this is quite beyond the capacity of the current American administration.