ISRAEL will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because [...]

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What would happen to the world economy?
Quite simply the economic consequences of such a raid would be cataclysmic.
It isn’t just that Iran is the world’s second largest oil producer, with the third largest global reserves of oil and the second largest of natural gas. The truly significant part is where Iran actually is. Even assuming [...]

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Some autocratic governments are challenging U.S. policies and silencing domestic dissent. But their increased spending raises the risk of inflation, which could erode popular support.
But some of the most obvious effects are in countries whose leaders are most hostile to the United States: Venezuela’s populist President Hugo Chavez, Iran’s stringent Islamic rulers and Russia’s growing [...]

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The Pentagon said on Tuesday that Iran has the ability to launch a ballistic missile capable of hitting sections of eastern and southern Europe.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, director of the Missile Defence Agency, told reporters he believes Iran now has a missile with a range of 2,000 km, but he declined to say [...]

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DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Israel has placed its military and air forces on its northern borders on high alert after Iran and Syria ignored Jerusalem’s warning, relayed to Washington, that the continued presence of Iranian, Syrian and Hizballah officers on the strategic Lebanese Sannine peak may spark a military clash.
Monday, July 14, two days [...]

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Gazprom is a busy beaver these days. First Libya, then Iran. This probably falls under the strategic unhelpfulness category.
From the article:
A few days after French oil giant Total withdrew from its planned multi-billion dollar gas investment project in Iran, Russia’s Gazprom is entering the market in a multi-billion-dollar deal.
Gazprom’s Chief Executive Alexei Miller met on [...]

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U.S. President George W. Bush has given Israel an “amber light” to begin preparations for a military attack on Iran, a Pentagon official told The Sunday Times this week.
“Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you’re ready,” the official said.
The official told the Times that Bush [...]

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In the past few weeks, Hizballah at the behest of Iran and Syria has commandeered the 7,800-foot Mt. Sannine, a strategic asset capable of determining the outcome of the next war, as DEBKA-Net-Weekly 356 revealed.
Radar-guided missile positions and an early warning station have since been deployed on its summit, which are capable of monitoring and [...]

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How would we like it if Russia placed interceptor missiles in Cuba or Venezuela? That question is disingenuous. Both Russia and China have been quietly helping Iran with its missile and nuclear programs. And now they’re mad that we actually want to protect ourself from a rogue state that they’ve been helping for years. That’s [...]

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Nervous Arab states fear a war in the Gulf but a nuclear-armed Iran is an even greater concern.
Iranian retaliation against oilfields, refineries and desalination plants in the Gulf, especially in eastern Saudi Arabia, is an obvious worry. Tehran has gone on the record as threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, the choke point for [...]

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The United States and Iran appear on a collision course in the Middle East, firing off mixed messages that are raising world tension and roiling oil markets amid fears that an eventual confrontation may be military.
Both insist war is not imminent, but their sharp words and provocative actions are stoking uncertainty as Washington and Tehran [...]

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An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be far more extensive than the 1980 raid. Some of the would-be targets for the Israeli Air Force (IAF) are hardened with concrete coverings and underground rooms. Dozens of planes would have to dodge radar and antiaircraft missile batteries to deliver multiple payloads of penetrating warheads—bought from the [...]

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Iran believed to test missiles for attack on U.S.
Graham warned in 2005 that Iran was not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, but was already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America’s technical infrastructure with the aim of neutralizing the world’s lone superpower.
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Analysts see a host of reasons to keep away from full-scale violence. Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli foreign minister, and Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, write in the Christian Science Monitor that bombing runs alone won’t destroy “any potential clandestine facilities in Iran nor Iran’s knowledge of the enrichment process.” Mohamad ElBaradei, [...]

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IRAN has issued a strident warning that it would “set on fire” Israel and target the US navy in the Persian Gulf as its first response to any American attack over its nuclear programme.
Rising tension in the area where Iran and the United States are both carrying out military exercises have contributed to driving oil [...]

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Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities
Orginally published in April 2006.
This paper will attempt to fill this gap in the existing literature by providing a rough net assessment of an Israeli strike on known Iranian nuclear facilities. It will do so by taking the strike on Osirak as a generic template for the strike [...]

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The truth is that Israel might invade Iran, but only when there is no other alternative, only if the international community falls down on its job and allows Iran to achieve independent nuclear capability. That time is not now. And should that time come, Israel will not announce it anywhere, not in the Israeli press, [...]

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Iran has resumed work on constructing highly sophisticated equipment that nuclear experts say is primarily used for building atomic weapons, according to the latest intelligence reports received by Western diplomats.
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The consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran are obvious. Its leaders are theologically motivated and believe Israel should be wiped off the map. It is the chief global sponsor of terrorism through groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Middle East experts believe a nuclear-armed Iran would soon be followed by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and [...]

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Only al-Qaeda and Iran pose bigger danger
The services are understood to fear that Russia’s three main intelligence agencies have flooded the country with agents, The Times understands.
There is reported to be deep irritation within the services that vital resources are having to be diverted to deal with industrial and military espionage by the Russians.
Read [...]

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Will Israel attack Iran? I see the probability of an Israeli attack at less than 50% with the Olmert government.
Olmert knows he needs to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons, but he just doesn’t have the will to pull off an attack on Iran.
The bottom line - we need to wait for a new Israeli [...]

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