Israeli Official Hints Pentagon Plans May Make Lone Strike on Iran

[A1Kaid]

Israeli Official Hints Pentagon Plans May Make Lone Strike on Iran Unnecessary



JERUSALEM — Israel’s departing defense minister, Ehud Barak, said that the Pentagon had prepared sophisticated blueprints for a surgical operation to set back Iran’s nuclear program should the United States decide to attack — a statement that was a possible indication that Israel might have shelved any plans for a unilateral strike, at least for now.

In an interview conducted at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and published by The Daily Beast on Friday, Mr. Barak was asked if there was any way Israel could go to war with Iran over what many in the West believe is a nuclear weapons program without dragging in the United States.

Mr. Barak replied that there were more than just the two options — of full-scale war or allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons capability — in the event that sanctions and diplomacy failed.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/w...m-plans-to-unilaterally-attack-iran.html?_r=0


Time is getting closer to the day Iran is struck hard.

 

[ILLUMINATO]

I hope India can broker a mid-way.

 

[A1Kaid]

I hope India can broker a mid-way.

Pentagon and Israel seem determine to strike Iran, if a mid-way where to come it would have been here already. Reports indicate Pentagon also has surgical strike plans on Iran and war plans, at this point Iran is asking for it because it has not cooperated with the International community and is in violation of NPT which Iran is a signatory of.

Useful diagram showing potential targets on Iran as well as other info.

 

[ILLUMINATO]

Pentagon and Israel seem determine to strike Iran, if a mid-way where to come it would have been here already. Reports indicate Pentagon also has surgical strike plans on Iran and war plans, at this point Iran is asking for it because it has not cooperated with the International community and is in violation of NPT which Iran is a signatory of.

Useful diagram showing potential targets on Iran as well as other info.

one more colum on the deadlock


Iran’s unexpectedly slow
missile progress, a dialed down
‘covert war,’ and uranium
enrichment changes may yield
more room for diplomacy over
the country’s nuclear program. Feb. 13, 2013 – Analysts are
toning down threat
assessments on Iran as several developments coincide to
lower the drumbeat of fears
about Iran’s nuclear intentions. From slower-than-expected
missile progress, to resumed
conversion of Iran’s most
sensitive enriched uranium
stockpile, along with the
apparent easing of a years- long, Israel-led covert war against Iran, they signal a
partial deescalation that could
yield more room for
diplomacy. On the surface it may appear
to be business as usual: United Nations nuclear inspectors arrived in Iran for discussions
to access suspect sites; nuclear
talks with six world powers are
to resume on Feb. 26. There
are few expectations of any
breakthroughs. And in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two days ago repeated demands
that crippling sanctions on Iran
be tightened further, along
with a “credible military
threat.” “Nothing else will do the job,
and it’s getting closer,” Mr.
Netanyahu warned. Such escalating tension has
been a geopolitical constant
between Iran and the US, Israel, and their European allies
over Iran’s nuclear program,
especially in the past two
years. But for the moment,
that escalation may be more
holding pattern than headlong rush. Iran confirmed reports
yesterday that it has resumed
converting small amounts of
its higher-grade enriched
uranium into reactor fuel,
essentially removing that material from the mix that can
be enriched further into bomb-
grade uranium. The scale of how much it
converted is not yet clear, but
the process lowers the
stockpile of 20-percent
enriched uranium that has
been at the heart of nuclear talks. Israel has said its “red
line” is Iran’s accumulation of
240 kilograms of it – enough
to potentially make a single
bomb if enriched further. Iran
has kept below that figure. US and British officials have
reportedly rejected Israel’s “red
line” number, and some
experts estimate that 375 kgs
would be needed for that
purpose. The red-line precedent was set
last year, when Iran converted
100 kgs of its stockpile of
nearly 233 kgs of 20-percent
enriched uranium, a sizable
portion that Israel’s then- defense chief Ehud Barak said in October had delayed a
military strike decision by eight
to 10 months. That process has now resumed,
although the speed of that
resumption won’t be known
until later this month, when
the next report on Iran by the
UN’s international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due. Iran today announced that it
had begun to install a new,
more efficient generation of
centrifuge, though Iranian
media reports quoted officials
saying it was specifically for low-level, non-weapon
enrichment. “My interpretation is Iran
knows exactly what it is
doing,” says Shashank Joshi, a
research fellow at Britain‘s Royal United Services
Institute (RUSI). “If it has any sense, it is using this as a safety
valve, and will continue to do
so.” If Iran quietly keeps below the
240 kg line through the spring,
“that is a really good sign, and
I think diplomats are
recognizing that as a good
sign,” says Mr. Joshi. ‘Covert war’ eases The “covert war” waged
against Iran, with
assassinations of nuclear
scientists, unexplained
explosions, espionage, and
computer viruses such as Stuxnet – all of which Iran blames on Israel and the US,
backed up by some news
reports – also appears to have
eased in recent months. Iran’s reaction – which some
believe took the form of an
2011 assassination plot against
the Saudi Arabian ambassador
to Washington, and attacks a year ago in Georgia, Thailand, and India – also appears to have gone quiet in recent
months. Iranian officials frequently
brought up the killing of the
scientists at three rounds of
nuclear talks last spring.
Whenever Iran’s top nuclear
negotiator Saeed Jalili addressed the press, it was
beside portraits of the dead
scientists, hung with black
strips of cloth. Time magazine quoted senior Israeli security officials last
March saying that Israeli intelligence services were
scaling back covert
operations in Iran by “dozens of percent.” The reduction was across a
“wide spectrum” of operations,
Time reported, “cutting back
not only alleged high-profile
missions such as assassinations
and detonations at Iranian missile bases, but also efforts
to gather firsthand on-the-
ground intelligence and recruit
spies inside the Iranian
program.” Reasons for the apparent
easing of covert action may
include Iran boosting security
for key officials and bases
and its claim to have broken at
least two spy networks, meaning perhaps “all the low-
hanging fruit” has been
targeted, says Joshi, author of
“The Permanent Crisis: Iran’s
Nuclear Trajectory.” “But I lean toward the view
that a conscious choice has
been made in Israel to turn this
down,” says Joshi. The US may
have pushed for it, he suggests,
“because it was rightly being seen as hindering negotiations,
creating bad faith, and actually
only achieving temporary gains
that weren’t worth the
diplomatic costs.” Slowed missile progress Also part of the new strategic
mix: Iran has made little
discernible progress on the
type of longer-range ballistic
missiles that would carry a
nuclear warhead to Europe and beyond – if the Islamic
Republic were to decide to
make such a weapon. Iran says it rejects nuclear
weapons as un-Islamic, and
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated so repeatedly, even
issuing a fatwa forbidding
making, stockpiling, and using
such weapons. Both US and
Israeli intelligence says Iran
has not yet made a decision to make an atomic bomb, much
less one small enough to fit
into a missile nosecone. In 2012 there was no flight test
of any of Iran’s longer-range
ballistic missiles, though
Iran claimed progress on short-
and medium-range missiles. “Iran’s strategic missiles are
emerging much more slowly
than previously projected, if
they are emerging at all,” notes an assessment last
week by the Arms Control Association (ACA) in Washington. It concluded that the US should
suspend plans to deploy
strategic missile defenses in
Europe until there were
“indications” of an actual
Iranian inter-continental ballistic missile threat. Iran’s missile program was set
back by an unexplained
explosion in November 2011,
which destroyed a large missile
facility west of Tehran and killed the head of Iran’s
missile program, Maj. Gen.
Hassan Moghaddam. Iran’s long-range missiles “did
not achieve anticipated
milestones in 2012,” notes the
ACA report. “There was also no change in
the assertions of Iranian
political and military leaders,
who deny any intention of or
political-military requirement
for developing either nuclear weapons or long-range
missiles,” adds the report. “Although such policy
statements are hardly
determinative of actual
intentions, they do stand in
stark contrast to the
declaratory polices of other …such as North Korea or Pakistan.”

 

[A1Kaid]

I don't think things are scaling down the International community gave plenty of time to Iran to stop enrichment and they haven't done so it will just get to the point where US and Israel are going to physically stop the enrichment. Some reports I have read is attacks may come this year as Netanyahu is becoming more eager and he doesn't want to leave office before attacking Iran.

 

[Serpentine]

Pentagon and Israel seem determine to strike Iran, if a mid-way where to come it would have been here already. Reports indicate Pentagon also has surgical strike plans on Iran and war plans, at this point Iran is asking for it because it has not cooperated with the International community and is in violation of NPT which Iran is a signatory of.

Useful diagram showing potential targets on Iran as well as other info.

We have just heard too much barking from Tel Aviv in last 6-7 years.It's enough.

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

Pentagon and Israel seem determine to strike Iran, if a mid-way where to come it would have been here already. Reports indicate Pentagon also has surgical strike plans on Iran and war plans, at this point Iran is asking for it because it has not cooperated with the International community and is in violation of NPT which Iran is a signatory of.

Useful diagram showing potential targets on Iran as well as other info.

I noticed that Israel adopts three air paths, via KSA, Turkey, and Syria. Why not Jordan?

 

[Icewolf]

Look at the Arab countries allowing Israeli warplanes to fly over... The same countries that dont recognize Israel... Shameful Arabs...

 

[Cheetah786]

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/w...m-plans-to-unilaterally-attack-iran.html?_r=0


Time is getting closer to the day Iran is struck hard.

Let me guess still isn't a Shia Issue

Remember the Israeli strike in Syria it was done to prevent the missiles from approaching Hezbollah as that would have been the game changer in Lebanon according to Israelis themselves and you know who was supplying those missiles yes you guessed it Iranians.

I Know i Know you didn't wanna hear this but at least i told you this before you started the party

 

[Ostad]

I noticed that Israel adopts three air paths, via KSA, Turkey, and Syria. Why not Jordan?

you are eager to help the country that killed your grandfathers and ... ?!!

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

you are eager to help the country that killed your grandfathers and ... ?!!

I am just asking why? Is that hard to grasp?

 

[Spring Onion]

Why US wants to carry out Israel's dirrtty work?

why will US attack Iran in the first place?

 

[FaujHistorian]

I noticed that Israel adopts three air paths, via KSA, Turkey, and Syria. Why not Jordan?

Obviously they are scared of something!

 

[Hack-Hook]

again this BS.

 

[PteX]

I am just asking why? Is that hard to grasp?

Because Israel does not want your king to be overthrown for allowing Israel to use Jordanian airspace. We are protecting you from your people.