Isaac Ben-Israel, a former Israeli Air Force general and now member of the ruling Kadima party, spoke with SPIEGEL about the limits of sanctions in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. He says Israel is prepared to mount a military strike against the mullah regime if diplomacy fails. more…

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Israel has just carried out a major aerial exercise, putting a hundred or so F-15s and F-16s into the skies over the eastern Mediterranean, evidently a rehearsal for a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The move follows the statement earlier this month by Shaul Mofaz, Israel’s deputy prime minister, that an Israeli attack on Iran’s [...]

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Meanwhile experts believe Iran will be able to produce inter-continental ballistic missiles capable of reaching Europe, and possibly America, by 2015. Some intelligence reports suggest Iran will have obtained the amount of uranium needed for a nuclear weapon much sooner.
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Connecting the Dots
The articles below show Iran developing the technology to enrich uranium, build a [...]

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Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with [...]

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Western pressure has failed to stop Iran’s nuclear program from advancing, its president said on Wednesday, a day after the United States and the European Union warned of more sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
“With God’s help today (the Iranian nation) have gained victory and the enemies cannot do a damned thing,” Ahmadinejad said in a [...]

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Okay, I want to hear the White House response to this, but it looks like twice in twenty-four hours I’ll be agreeing with a Democratic congresscritter. This time it’s Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, no less, who is advancing the radical proposal that maybe George Bush shouldn’t be committing your tax dollars to developing [...]

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With Iran unyielding, President Bush presses Europeans to punish Tehran for its nuclear program
The vow of further sanctions ordered up by individual governments—or perhaps across the 27-nation EU—may be the only realistic step left to escalate pressure on Iran. According to a senior European diplomat, the United Nations Security Council is unlikely to take further [...]

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Iran’s disputed nuclear program has sent a wave of interest in atomic energy across the Middle East, a think tank said Tuesday, warning that it risked setting the scene for a regional nuclear arms race.
At least 13 Middle Eastern countries either announced new plans to explore atomic energy or revived pre-existing nuclear programs between February [...]

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The Israelis are also worried, and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made repeated statements about an “Iranian threat” that must be dealt with decisively. He does not mince words. According to Netanyahu, we are obliged to believe those who promise to wipe us out. He points to the example of Hitler, who publicly [...]

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In these two articles, AEI’s Danielle Pletka and John R. Bolton bring us up to date and discuss the larger implications of developments since Kim Jong Il pledged to give up his nuclear ambitions in exchange for diplomatic recognition and foreign aid. Pletka reminds readers that since North Korea signed the 1994 accord, it has [...]

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Left-wing governments in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia have all become allies of Iran in recent years, and other countries in Latin America have diplomatic ties with the Islamic republic.
Shannon said Iran wants to ease its international isolation by showing it is able to win friends in Latin America, which has been historically in the [...]

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TEHRAN — Iran’s supreme religious leader said Sunday that his nation would not bow to pressure after Western powers announced Friday that they would offer a new package of incentives to coax Iran to give up its nuclear program.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme religious leader, who has the final word on state matters, did not [...]

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The sprawling site, known as Natanz, made headlines recently because Iran is testing a new generation of centrifuges there that spin faster and, in theory, can more rapidly turn natural uranium into fuel for reactors or nuclear arms. The new machines are also meant to be more reliable than their forerunners, which often failed catastrophically.
On [...]

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Diplomats say Islamic Republic installing new centrifuges in Natanz weapons facility in move said to show it has no intention of suspending nuclear program despite demands by UN Security Council
Iran has begun installing advanced centrifuges in its main uranium enrichment plant, accelerating activity that could give it the means to make atom bombs in future [...]

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