Russia is deploying the threat to sell a “game changing” air defence system to Iran as a high stakes bargaining chip in its new “cold war” with America, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
US intelligence fears the Kremlin will supply the sophisticated S-300 system to Tehran if Washington pushes through Nato membership for its pro-Western neighbours [...]

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Iran’s president said Saturday his country now possesses 6,000 centrifuges, a significant increase in its nuclear program that is certain to further rankle the United States and others who fear Tehran is intent on developing weapons.
The new figure is double the 3,000 uranium-enriching machines Iran had previously said it was operating.
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European Union foreign ministers say they will not support a military strike on Iran but want more talks to try to resolve worries Tehran might be developing nuclear weapons.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says it is now up to Iran to respond to global powers and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana after talks in [...]

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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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The private front companies, hidden on the outskirts of Teheran, are designed to operate undetected by the United Nations nuclear inspection teams. Concerns that nuclear weapon production will continue despite Iran’s proclamations of peaceful use only have circulated among Western experts.
One of the front companies will be located in Amir Abad, western Tehran, intelligence sources [...]

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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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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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But we seem to keep arriving at them anyway. The news of Iran’s test Wednesday and the seemingly unstoppable nature of its nuclear program made me wonder whether we are close to another such tipping point. And whether it’s too late to turn back. Tehran’s test-firing of nine long- and medium-range missiles was intended to [...]

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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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The UN atomic watchdog chief warned on Saturday that an attack on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme would turn the region into a fireball, as Tehran rejected any Israeli strike as “impossible.”
Mohamed ElBaradei also warned that he would not be able to continue in his role as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general [...]

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Is there a significant chance that Israel will attack by year end Iran’s nuclear facilities? The German magazine Spiegel argues so in a two-part article “Mission Doable“ and “‘We Will See a Middle East in Flames’“ (hat tip to Fabius Maximus):
While the Europeans continue to pin their hopes on diplomacy and are convinced that [...]

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The Israeli government no longer believes that sanctions can prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. A broad consensus in favor of a military strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities — without the Americans, if necessary — is beginning to take shape.
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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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Israel braced itself for conflict on two fronts against militants in Gaza and an Iranian government persisting with its nuclear programme.
Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, said the “pendulum is closer” to a large scale military operation in Gaza after another Israeli civilian was killed by a mortar fired from Gaza on Thursday.
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One of Mr Olmert’s [...]

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On a recent afternoon, while riding a rickety bus down Tehran’s main thoroughfare, I overheard two women discussing the grim state of Iranian politics. One of them had reached a rather desperate conclusion. “Let the Americans come,” she said loudly. “Let them sort things out for us.”
Although their leaders still call America the “Great Satan,” [...]

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UN inspectors were shocked by the recent discovery of an Iranian document describing the process for making the potential core of a nuclear weapon.
Tehran called the allegations of pursuing bomb-making “baseless” and claimed that the intelligence was fabricated. However, the 15-page document appears to be the recipe for the process of machining uranium metal into [...]

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Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called on the world’s Muslims on Sunday to work to “erase” Israel, in the latest verbal attack by Tehran against the Jewish state.
“As the Imam Khomeini said, if each Muslim throws a bucket of water on Israel, Israel will be erased,” Mottaki told a conference in Tehran, recalling a [...]

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There are two significant developments going on at the same time concerning Iran. Iran is now in command of missiles stationed in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iran. Next, Iran has achieved a breakthrough in missile design in order to accommodate nuclear warheads.
From the article:
Military experts comment that Tehran’s centralized control of four hostile missile fronts [...]

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When Damascus confirmed peace talks with Israel on May 21, a secret high-powered military purchasing delegation, headed by air force-air defenses commander Gen. Akhmad Ratyb, was already in Moscow. With a $5 billion allocation in hand from Tehran, the delegation was bidding for the most advanced products of Russia’s munitions industry.
The six main categories of [...]

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But there are alarming signs that this sudden enthusiasm is driven less by concerns about the climate, or declining oil supplies, than by Iran’s growing nuclear proficiency. In addition to building power plants, Tehran is determined to produce its own nuclear fuel — a process that with a little more work could also churn [...]

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“Within a year, the Israeli government will have to decide between two options: either not do anything and reconcile itself to the fact that Iran is now nuclear, or take unilateral military action,” Giora Eiland, Israel’s former national security adviser, told Scotland on Sunday.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Israel is also worried that Tehran is [...]

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