KHAMENEI'S NEW BOOK PREACHES HATRED AND ANNIHILATION OF AMERICA

The chilling rhetoric from Iran Obama doesn't want you to know about.

Ironically, as the financial rewards and the improved legitimacy that have resulted from Obama’s nuclear deal continue to benefit the Iranian ruling clerics, the Iranian political establishment’s hatred towards the United States is reaching its peak.

This week, the highest authority in the Islamic Republic, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, banned and forbade any further talks and negotiations between his country and the United States: “Negotiation with US is forbidden."

In addition, he recently made his new e-book available for download in English. The Ayatollah points out: “The regional nations truly hate America and its European branch, England. This hatred is not limited to our people: all regional nations hate them ... Why do they complain about being hated? Yes, we hate you.” The book advocates for annihilating America and Israel. It rants about how the Muslim world hates the US and Israel.

As a result, how can President Obama stand behind his promise that the nuclear deal is going to make the ruling clerics of the Islamic Republic more rational, less hostile to the United States and Israel, more civilized and a more constructive player in the region?

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that the theocratic leader has not even officially endorsed the nuclear deal, although the sanctions on the country are being gradually lifted. His strategy is to pull out of the nuclear deal after all economic sanctions have been lifted and Iran has obtained full nuclear capabilities.

The timing of the Supreme Leader’s announcement and other recent equally inflammatory statements is important since they come after the Islamic Republic has ensured that the nuclear deal is sealed and Tehran will be receiving over $150 billion in the short term and other additional financial rewards when the economic sanctions are fully lifted.

In addition, the Supreme Leader has heightened his anti-American and anti-Semitic views and speeches after getting indirect assurance from the Obama administration that the US will not impose any kind of sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Even in the future, no sanctions will be imposed on Iran’s human rights abuses, support for terrorism, or any other outlandish inhumane actions.

As the Secretary of State John Kerry pointed out to US senators, Congress won't be able to impose new sanction on the Islamic Republic. The administration’s rule of not imposing sanctions applies to anything, whether related to nuclear issues or not, because as Mr. Kerry pointed out, he does not desire to show the Islamic Republic that the US is projecting "bad faith."

This suggests that the administration will support the Iranian leaders in any way possible in order to show good faith, while Iran’s paramount leader is calling for the complete annihilation of the US and Israel, and increasing his military interventions in the region by dominating Baghdad, Damascus, Lebanon, and Sana’a. He has demonstrated clear support for terrorists groups, is determined to scuttle US national, economic and security interests, and has consistently increased his anti-American and anti-Semitic speeches and foreign policies.

Speaking to the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- who spread terrorism, militarism and Islamist ideologies in the region -- Ayatollah Khamenei pointed out that "[w]e are in a critical situation now as the enemies are trying to change the mentality of our officials and our people on the revolution and our national interests." In addition, with all the advantages that President Obama has given to the Supreme Leader through the nuclear deal, Khamenei stated, "Negotiations with the United States open gates to their economic, cultural, political and security influence. Even during the nuclear negotiations they tried to harm our national interests."

The Obama administration, on the other hand, insists in not imposing any kind of new sanction because it does not want the Iranian government to get discontent and breach the nuclear deal, as recently made clear by Secretary Kerry.

So, can we consider this policy an informed one when the US is compelled to continue to please and spoil the Islamic Republic -- by turning a blind eye on its egregious human rights abuses, imprisonment of American citizens without fair and due process, support of  terrorist groups, sabotage of US foreign policy, national, and security interests in the region -- all so that Iranian leaders will stick to the nuclear deal?

In other words, what Secretary Kerry is saying is that any time the Iranian leaders feel discontent, the Obama administration's policy is to give further bonuses to the ruling clerics and implore them not to back out of the nuclear deal. This coddling has created precisely a situation in which the Iranian ruling clerics have the opportunity to take complete advantage of the American government by exploiting the administration's weak stance. It seems that when it comes to Iran, President Obama has switched the “carrot and stick” approach to a policy anchored in lavishing rewards on the Iranian leaders.

It is also important not to forget that Iranian leaders were the ones who were desperate for the nuclear deal: they are receiving billions of dollars, global legitimacy, and ensuring their hold on power and pursuit of nuclear objectives, as well as enhancing their regional hegemonic ambitions due to this deal. But since they have smelled the weakness of President Obama, they are more than happy to capitalize on it and exploit it.

As long as the theocratic Islamist political establishment is in power in the Islamic Republic, the Iranian leaders will continue their hatred and anti-American policies towards the US even if the US provides Tehran with its every whim and desire.

IRANIAN Revolutionary Guard Commander Says: “We Will Not Rest Until The U.S. Is An Islamic Republic”

by Shoebat Foundation 

By BI: Just like ISIS, this is the ultimate goal of virtually every Muslim on earth. A leading commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has claimed his country’s ultimate aim is to turn the United States into “an Islamic Republic,” and rejected any possibility of a thawing in relations between Tehran and “The Great Satan.”

INN  Commander Hassan Abbasi went on to attack the US, noting the position of Iran’s leadership remains one of perpetual hostility towards America and opposition to its most fundamental values. “Just as we defeated the United States’ policies in Syria and Lebanon and Iraq and Yemen in the Middle East, we will not rest until we make the United State an Islamic Republic too.”

Hamas signs binding military commitment to Iran-led war on Israel

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar and deputy commander of its military arm, Marwan Issa, spent the second week of September in Beirut and Tehran finalizing and signing protocols covering a binding commitment by the radical Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip to join Iran, Syria and Hizballah in a war on Israel, debkafile’s exclusive military sources disclose.

The protocols set out in detail the circumstances, procedures and terms governing Hamas’s participation in a conflict, whether it arises from an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program or the involvement of Iran’s allies, Syria and Hizballah, in comprehensive or partial hostilities against Israel. Hamas agreed to obey any orders to attack the Jewish state coming from Tehran, Damascus or Beirut.

Tehran also required A-Zahar and Issa to attach their signatures to copies of the military understandings Iranian National Security Director Saeed Jalili concluded with Bashar Assad during his visit to Damascus on Aug. 7. Those understandings, debkafile reports, touched off the massive Iranian airlift currently carrying hundreds of military personnel and weapons day by day to the embattled Syrian regime.

Hamas’s signature provided a booster shot of 22,000 trained fighters including reservists for the battle array of elite Iranian al Qods Brigades units building up in Syria and Lebanon and taking up positions along Israel’s borders.

This buildup prompted the large-scale snap military exercise Israel staged on the Golan Wednesday, Sept. 19. Most of the forces stayed on after the exercise was over and spread out along the Syrian and Lebanese borders.

The directives Hamas leaders received in Tehran after their meetings with top officials were detailed and precise. They were handed down in person by Defense Minister Ahmed Wahidi, Revolutionary Guards Chief Gen. Ali Jafari, the Al Qods Brigades commander, Qassem Soleimani, and a select group of Iranian intelligence experts on the Israel.

Those orders were presented in the language of commands and brooked no argument. Tehran had two goals:

1. To leave no leeway for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, of which the Palestinian Hamas is an offshoot, to veto the pledges Hamas signed in Tehran. The Palestinian Hamas was put on notice that the group was now under contract to defer to Tehran in military matters ahead of Cairo.

2.  Iran, Hizballah and Syria instructed Hamas to stop obstructing Jihad Islami’s activities in the Gaza Strip and be ready to operate in harmony with Iran’s Palestinian proxy against Israel. In a potential outbreak of war, both must take their orders from Iran’s Middle East command.

For placing itself under Tehran’s jackboot, Hamas was assured of the resumption of Iranian economic aid and fresh supplies of missiles, advanced hi-tech war equipment to improve the accuracy of its rocket attacks on Israel - which rarely hit much - and anti-air weapons systems.

Iran had been keeping Hamas short pending the guarantees and pledges of allegiance A Zahar carried to Tehran and Beirut in the round trips he made between Sept 8 and 13.  Even then, to make sure there were no loopholes in their accords, the Iranians forced the Hamas delegation to break its journey home to the Gaza Strip in Beirut, repeat their commitments to Tehran to Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah and re-sign the documents in his presence. Failing to honor the deal, they warned, would elicit the immediate cutoff of Iranian aid and supplies.

debkafile’s military analysts report Hamas’ decision to unreservedly hitch its star to the Iranian wagon produced immediate fallout – especially on Egyptian-Israeli relations and counter-terror operations in Egyptian Sinai.

Friday, Islamist terrorists breached the Egyptian-Israeli border from Sinai, shot dead IDF Corp.

Netanel Yahalomi and injured a second soldier, before the IDF killed three of the gunmen in a shootout. In the last year, Sinai has become the stamping ground for al Qaeda cells and allied Islamic terrorists. Egypt’s new rulers have proved unequal to the job of controlling the territory.

At the same time, Cairo is demanding the revision of the 1979 peace treaty’s military clauses. President Mohamed Morsi said Sunday, Sept 23, that his government would uphold the peace pact with Israel only if US commits to helping the Palestinians attain self-rule.

Israeli leaders are now asking what guarantees is President Morsi offering for offsetting any Iranian-orchestrated Hamas war operations from Gaza in line with the accord they have just signed in Tehran and Beirut.

Furthermore, they ask, what happens to the al Qaeda cells and other military groups rampant in Sinai? Up until now Iran and Hamas ran their ties with those terrorists on separate tracks. Will they now effect a merger?

A note of foreboding on this score was struck by Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz Sunday, Sept. 23, when he toured the scene of the last shootout with Sinai terrorists.

“The Sinai border will continue to present us with a challenge,” he said. “We have made a colossal effort in the last two years to seal off the Egyptian border and it will be done. But even then, the threat will not disappear.”

Iran pours more troops into Syria, ready to target Israel from Syria and Lebanon

DEBKAfile Special Report

Iran continues to fly military personnel and quantities of weapons into Syria by civilian aircraft which cut through Iraqi airspace, American intelligence sources disclosed early Thursday, Sept. 20. UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon also said that, "Unfortunately, both [Syrian] sides, government and opposition forces, seem to be determined to see the end by military means."

Clearly, Iran is augmenting its military involvement in the constantly escalating Syrian civil war, broadening it into a multinational conflict which threatens to drag Lebanon in, by means of the Iranian-Syrian ally, Hizballah.

The UN Secretary General's statement implying that the two Syrian sides are determined to fight to the bitter end is echoed in Iran’s resolve to fight to the bitter end for Assad, on Syrian soil.
Tehran is not hiding its actions. Sunday, Sept. 16, Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Commander Gen. Ali Jafari said openly that Al Qods Brigades units were present and operational in both Syria and Lebanon.

No comment on this revelation has come from the US, Israel or Israel’s military (IDF) chiefs - notwithstanding its menacing import, namely, that Tehran is no longer hanging about and waiting for its nuclear program to be attacked in order to punish Israel, but is getting ready for a pre-emptive operation.

Still, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have chosen silence in the face of what any other nation would regard as a casus belli: the open deployment of enemy forces on its northern and eastern borders.

This must have been the catalyst for the IDF’s surprise two-division strength drill Wednesday on Israel’s Golan border with Syria. But the IDF spokesman sounded almost apologetic when he explained that the exercise had nothing to do with the events in Syria or with Hizballah, and that it was no more than a routine drill for testing preparedness.

debkafile's military sources say that, in the current climate, no military operation by any army on the Syrian border – especially one of this magnitude – may be regarded as “routine.” Only a week ago, the Golani Brigade concluded a large military exercise in northern Israel including the Golan. That sort of frequency must have operational connotations: The IDF is evidently keeping the army on the move and in a constant state of readiness to fight a real war without delay on terrain made familiar by repeated war games.

IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Benny Gantz has a penchant for expressing himself through symbols, his method of overcoming the restrictions placed on his tongue by military and other constraints.

On New Year’s Eve last week, the general handed military correspondents a small gift: The Hebrew edition of the American writer Richard David Bach's "There's No Such Place as Far Away."

For the Golan drill Wednesday, he decided to attach Maj. Gen. (res.) Nati Sharoni, chief artillery officer in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, to his party of advisers and observers.

The book was a clear message to Tehran and doubting Thomases at home that the IDF is fully capable of an operation against Iran’s nuclear program and of successfully accomplishing any mission far from its shores.

Gen. Sharoni’s presence at the Golan exercise, and the exercise itself, was a warning to Iran, Hizballah and Syria that they will be disappointed if they hope to catch Israel unready, as it was by the surprise attack which almost overcame the IDF 39 years ago before the tide of war was turned back against Egypt.

Iran: Zionists spread homosexuality to control world

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

Journalist slams report in state-controlled Iranian paper as Nazi propaganda; experts say it shows "how desperate Iran actually is."

BERLIN – A report in a state-controlled Iranian paper last week asserting that the “Zionist regime” “spreads homosexuality” across the globe in order to pursue its goal of world domination has sparked fierce criticism from experts on Iran because of its homophobia and anti- Semitism.

Mashregh News, an outlet affiliated with radical Islamists in Qom, wrote that the US and the UK are using money from Jews to spread homosexuality throughout the world. The article blasted Israel for promoting demonstrations for gay rights and specifically decried Tel Aviv as the gay paradise on earth. It also ridiculed Conservative Judaism for accepting gay rabbis, and urged Western governments to stop people from engaging in gay – and therefore immoral – actions, and provide medical treatment for homosexuals in order to stop their conduct.

Writing on Monday on the gay website GGG, Chris Karnak said the Mashregh item “reads like an article from the Nazi agitation paper Der Stürmer.”

Dr. Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, an expert on minority groups in Iran, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that the article is “against gays, against the West and anti-Semitic.” He added that “the text legitimizes the execution of gays in Iran; they made a text not only to ridicule the West but to provide a reason why Iran executes gays.”

The Iranian report also attacked Hollywood for depicting gays in positive terms on the silver screen. Moreover, according to the article, schools in California include homosexuality in their education plans because of a recommendation of a Jewish university.

Saba Farzan, a German-Iranian expert in the field of human rights in the Islamic Republic, wrote the Post via email on Tuesday: “This recent attack on human decency by the Iranian regime is tragically not surprising, but these vicious words continue to hurt. Once again this barbaric dictatorship has revealed its hatred towards gays and lesbians as well as towards the State of Israel and Western countries.”

“This is especially ridiculous as in the Middle East, Israel is the only state where the gay community is safe and protected,” she continued. “The Islamic Republic shows with this uncivilized world view how desperate it actually is.”

If Israel attacks Iran, US Mid East bases will pay dear – Nasrallah

DEBKAfile Special Report

Cutting through the US-Israeli debate over where to put “red lines” for Iran, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Monday night, Sept. 3 that Iran would hit US bases in the Middle East in response to any Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities, even if the Americans were not involved in the attack.

Earlier Monday, the New York Times reported on the debate in the White House over whether US President Barack Obama should declare “red lines” for Iran beyond which the US would act, in response to Israel’s complaint that he has been too vague about how far Iran will be allowed to go.

But even if Obama did set a clear red line now, the NYT admits its credibility would be questionable: “The US and its allies have allowed Iran to cross seven previous red lines in 18 years."

The statement by the top US soldier, Gen. Martin Dempsey, last Thursday that America did not “want to be complicit” in an Israeli attack on Iran was interpreted by the prime movers as meaning that US-Israeli discussions in the last two weeks on where to put the "red lines" were at an impasse.

In an attempt to contain the fallout from the Dempsey comment and put the dialogue back on track, the White House is sending CIA director David Petraeus to Jerusalem for more “red line” palaver with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

debkafile, which first disclosed his mission Sunday, Sept. 2, voiced doubts about his chances of success. Both parties to the debate know that the sands on a nuclear Iran are running out faster than they can talk. Roughly by the end of this month or early October, Iran will have enough 20-percent enriched uranium for its first nuclear bomb, overtaking any “red lines” and making them irrelevant.

Feeling the approaching heat, Netanyahu called a special cabinet meeting for Tuesday, Sept. 4 with the participation of the heads of Israel’s clandestine services, Military Intelligence, the Mossad, the Shin Bet and the Foreign Office Research Division, to hear their annual report.

It is likely to go on all day with updates on the situation in Syria, Egypt and Jordan – all weighty topics. But the agenda will certainly be topped with a detailed rundown on the current state of Iran’s nuclear program.

After that rundown, the prime minister and defense minister will enter the final decision-making stage on war against Iran.

At this critical moment, wit calculated timing, Petraeus is due to land in Israel.

Although the opponents of Netanyahu and Barak are fond of painting them as irresponsible adventurers ready to gamble with Israeli lives, it is Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has now raised the stakes in this game of dare and slapped down the highest cards.

The red line he instructed the head of Iran’s Lebanese surrogate Hizballah to lay down was unambiguous and designed to leap over the range of steps the US was planning short of war to “forestall an Israeli attack, while forcing the Iranians to take more seriously negotiations…”.

Nasrallah’s pitch took the scenario straight into stage one of the war to come: “If Israel targets Iran, America bears responsibility,” he told the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen TV Monday night.

“A decision has been taken in Tehran to respond and the response will be very great,” he said, citing “Iranian officials.”

Nasrallah carried a triple message from Tehran to Washington and Jerusalem:

1.  Iran believes an Israeli attack will take place before the US presidential election on Nov. 6;

2.  Tehran is drawing on a powerful deterrent: Lest anyone expected a low-key Iranian response to an attack on its nuclear facilities, the Hizballah leader put them right when he said, “the response will be very great” and “America bears responsibility.”

3. By putting Nasrallah out front as a leading Iranian spokesman, Khamenei signaled that Hizballah would take an active role in the coming conflict.

debkafile: The chatter about “red lines” in the last few days has therefore had the effect of stirring the Iranians into preempting them by a single sharp stroke.

Is Israel planning EMP attack on Iran?

Tehran nearing 'zone of immunity' against conventional assault on nuclear sites

by F. Michael Maloof

WASHINGTON – Analysts say because Israel now believes diplomacy has failed to halt Iran’s nuclear program and the Jewish state’s very survival is at stake, Israelis have not ruled out a Jericho III missile launch to detonate a single electromagnetic pulse warhead at high altitude over central Iran.
The assessment is underscored by recent comments from Israeli officials that the Islamic republic is reaching its “zone of immunity” from conventional military attack on its nuclear sites.

In addition, analysts point out the use of long-range aircraft with refueling capability would be highly complex and pose many logistical problems. Israel also probably would not be allowed overflight permission from Turkey, Iraq or Saudi Arabia to reach its Iranian targets. Further, such an approach would minimize any element of surprise.

Meanwhile, top religious and political officials in Iran have issued repeated warnings they plan to obliterate the Jewish state.

Israel has made an assessment that Iran is on the threshold of a breakthrough to make a nuclear weapon. However,  some national security experts, including some in the United States, believe Iran is several years away from making such a device. And they say actual weaponization – the ability to miniaturize a nuclear bomb to fit on its nuclear-capable missiles – still is further off.

Debate over just how close Iran may be to making a nuclear weapon has raised the issue of the quality of the intelligence to back Israeli claims. Sources point to the example of the intelligence used to assess Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction that prompted the U.S. to attack Iraq in March 2003.

With Iran continuing its enrichment program, however, Israel and some Western countries are concerned that the amount of low-level uranium it has enriched could be enriched further to some 90 percent purity – which is what is required to make nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials don’t assess that Iran has reached that point.

Given that Iranian sites may be hardened against a conventional military attack, several Israeli and foreign sources believe that Israel has a nuclear device to create an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, that would produce little radiation on the ground but could knock out all of Iran’s electronics.

Israel also is assessed to be able to launch nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles from its German-supplied Dolphin electric submarines that could carry a one-kiloton or more device and explode over Iran, effectively neutralizing all of Iran’s electronics.

This would include Iran’s command and control capabilities and its ability to launch ballistic missiles in retaliation to a pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, which Western intelligence has assessed is a cover to make nuclear weapons.

Sources say that an Israeli EMP attack also would effectively halt Iran’s ability to launch its forces to block the Strait of Hormuz, which the Islamic republic has threatened to do if it is attacked, along with targeting a number of U.S. military facilities in the region, as well as Israel.

An electromagnetic pulse occurs following a nuclear weapon exploded at a high altitude, creating a very strong electrical field that can overwhelm all electronics, knocking out or seriously damaging any electronic devices connected to power sources or antennas, including communications equipment, computers, electrical appliances, automobile and aircraft ignitions systems. Experts say it also can adversely affect a person’s implanted heart pacemaker device.

The effect from an EMP would be very similar to electronics in a near lightning strike or a solar storm which also can affect electronics but on a lesser scale than a pulse from a high-altitude nuclear explosion.

Another scenario discussed among some Israeli leaders is the detonation of an EMP over the entire Middle East, including Israel, whose military infrastructure has been hardened against such attacks.

This would allow Israel to fly its jets directly to Iran without concerns about detection. Though it would also turn out the lights in Israel, sources there say the Jewish state could bring power back for civilians in a matter of days. A detonation at an altitude of up to 250 miles not only would affect all electronics in Iran but could damage electrical systems from the Middle East and much of Europe, these experts add. Such an EMP event also would dramatically affect all U.S. military facilities in the region.

An EMP attack on the United States, for example, from a 30-kiloton nuclear weapon exploded at an altitude of 62 miles, or 100 kilometers, effectively would knock out 70 percent of electrical systems up to a thousand miles in every direction. A similar explosion at a higher altitude of some 250 miles would virtually affect all electronics from Boston to Los Angeles and from Chicago to New Orleans, according to experts.

Consequently, a detonation limited to Iran would have to be at a much lower altitude to avoid such far-ranging effects on the electronics in the region and beyond.

According to U.S. intelligence sources, Israel not only possesses nuclear devices of one kiloton or more which would be sufficient to create an effective result from an electromagnetic pulse but has Jericho III missiles which it tested in 2009 capable of carrying nuclear payloads some 2,500 miles. The distance between Israel and Iran is approximately 1,000 miles.

U.S. sources knowledgeable about ways to “harden” buildings and other facilities against an EMP attack say business in this area has been booming throughout the Middle East for months.

In recent weeks, U.S. intelligence officials have told WND/G2Bulletin that they have detected Israel handling propellants for its Jericho missiles.

The prospect that Israel has this capability was first made known by an ex-CIA case officer, Chet Nagle, at a Capitol Hill EMPact America press conference held in Washington, D.C., in November 2011.

A similar prospect was outlined in a Nov. 10, 2011, Front Page Magazine article, “Connecting the Nuclear Dots on Iran,” written by Kenneth Timmerman who is the president of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran and maintains close ties with the Iranian opposition.

“Any Israeli attack on Iran is sure to make of Israel an international pariah, Nagle argues,” Timmerman said in quoting Nagle in a conversation. “Plus, the likelihood of success – that is, in destroying or disabling all of Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities (by conventional means) so they have nothing to launch on the morning after the attack – is low.

“If you’re going to go to all that trouble and be a pariah,” Timmerman quoted Nagel as saying in their conversation, “why not take one of those Jericho missiles, and detonate it 300 miles above the surface and deliver an EMP strike on Iran? That would stop their clock – if it’s electric – as well as all those centrifuges and everything else. Then the Greens can take over the country and we can go back in and rebuild the grid.”

The prospect for this doomsday approach has arisen due to a comment made by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak last February that Iran was entering a “zone of immunity” from military attack. Other officials in recent days have suggested that such a “zone of immunity” will be reached before the end of the year.

“The world, including the current U.S. administration, understands and accepts that Israel necessarily views the threat differently than they do, and that ultimately, Israel is responsible for taking the decisions related to its future, its security and its destiny,” Barak said.

Given that this “zone of immunity” could be reached before the end of the year, there has been increasing speculation in recent days that Israel may launch an attack prior to the U.S. presidential elections in an effort to force the U.S. to act. Sources say that the Israelis have assessed that if President Obama is re-elected, he may want to continue down the path of negotiating with the Iranians.

The sources add that by attacking prior to the U.S. elections in November, the U.S. then will have no choice but to back Israel due to the U.S. commitment to ensure Israel’s security. They add that it also will help Obama’s re-election efforts.

Iran, however, insists that its nuclear development program is for peaceful purposes as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Under the terms of the NPT, Iran has the “right” to enrich uranium as it is doing. Iran has enriched up to 20 percent, which is more than enough for refueling its nuclear reactors but is considered an acceptable level for medical research.

As early as 2005, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that is a legal pronouncement in Islam, that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic republic “shall never acquire these weapons.” Last February, Khamenei reiterated his 2005 fatwa.

“The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons,” he said. “There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.”

Sources say that the edict from Khamenei is considered more than a fatwa, given that he not only is an ayatollah but also the supreme leader of Iran. For that reason, what he said is considered a hukm, or decree of the Supreme Jurisprudent, or Vali-yi Faqih, that determines the legal framework of the Islamic republic in accordance with Islamic law.

Khamenei: The Zionist regime will disappear from the map

Iranian officials ramp up rhetoric ahead of anti-Israel event, Al-Quds Day; Israeli gov't official: The fact that Iran makes such comments despite increased int'l pressure shows they really believe it.

By HERB KEINON, JOANNA PARASZCZUK

With the US sending clear public signals to Israel that it is opposed to military action now against Iran, and a cacophonous debate on the matter in Israel, senior Iranian officials continue to threaten Israel with destruction.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that he was confidant "the fake Zionist (regime) will disappear from the landscape of geography,” Iran's Mehr News Agency reported.

Khamenei made the comments during a meeting with veterans of the Iran-Iraq War.
"The light of hope will shine on the Palestinian issue, and this Islamic land will certainly be returned to the Palestinian nation," Khamenei was quoted as saying.

Earlier on Wednesday Brig.- Gen. Gholamreza Jalali, the head of Iran's Passive (civil) Defense Organization and a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, during a speech ahead of Al-Quds Day, an anti-Israel event initiated by Iran, said that in order to liberate Palestine there was no other option but to destroy Israel.

"[Al-Quds Day] is a reflection of the fact that no other way exists apart from resolve and strength to completely eliminate the aggressive nature and to destroy Israel," Jalali said, according to a report by Iran's ISNA news agency.

The report was also picked up by other news outlets including Mashregh News, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards.

Al-Quds Day is an annual Iranian anti-Zionist event established in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini and which falls this year on August 17. Iran also seeks to export the event to other Muslim countries.

Jalali said that the message of Khomeini's Al-Quds  Day initiative was that the Muslim world must support the "oppressed people of Palestine" in a show of resistance against "the Zionist usurpers."

The Passive Defense Organization head added that the Islamic Revolution was a "beacon of light" and that the plight of the Palestinians was not forgotten.

Calling on Muslims to rally on Al-Quds Day, he expressed hope that the Islamic world would be "strong against the Zionist threat," adding that the "Islamic front in Syria has been strengthened," presumably a reference to Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

An Israeli government official responded to Jalali's comments by saying it was simply a "reaffirmation of what we continually hear from the Iranian leadership."

The official said that the statement was "not an aberration," and that Israel was taking the Iranian threat very seriously. "We urge others to do the same," he said. "The Iranians use unequivocal language, and their words speak for themselves."

The official said that it would be in the interest of Iran's leadership to rein in these comments in at this time to reduce international pressure, and the fact that Iran's leaders continue to utter such remarks just shows the degree to which they actually believe them.

The official, meanwhile, dismissed a report on a left-wing, anti-Netanyahu blog called Tikun Olam Wednesday purporting to have "an Israeli briefing document outlining Israel's war plans against Iran." The blogger, Richard Silverstein, said the document "feels" like it came "from the shop of national security advisor Yaakov Amidror, a former general, settler true believer and Bibi confidant.  It could also have been produced by Defense Minister Barak, another pro-war booster."

According to Silverstein the document talks about a coordinated strike that will include an "unprecedented cyber-attack" that will totally paralyze the Iranian regime, as well as a barrage of ballistic missiles launched from Israel and Israeli submarines near the Persian Gulf. IAF planes, according to the "document," will be armed with electronic warfare gear previously unknown even to the US that will render the planes "invisible."

One government official said there is "a lot of press speculation out there, and everyone has their 'secret source.' It is not the government's policy to comment on any piece of speculation."

Iran finds ways to sidestep sanctions

High oil prices and complicated financial schemes have helped Iran survive sanctions, analysts and officials have said. 

This month, U.S. authorities accused Standard Chartered of concealing about 60,000 transactions with Iranian clients from U.S. regulators, violating sanctions against the Iranian government. StanChart said that “well over 99.9 percent” of its transactions with Iran complied with the U-turn regulations that govern the clearance of dollars from Iran in the U.S.

The Standard Chartered case comes weeks after a U.S. Senate panel released a 335-page report describing a decade of compliance failures by HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank. An outside audit by Deloitte showed that 25,000 transactions totalling more than $19.4bn involved Iran. Of those, as many as 90 percent passed through the bank’s U.S. accounts with no disclosure of ties to Iran, according to the Senate report.

Those cases highlight the measures the Iranian government has been able to take to survive the sanctions.

Businessmen have found myriad ways to live with the financial restrictions. They use trusted money changers and an old financial transfer system known as hawala, even though these deals are costly.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult as our costs are going up and we have to give more discounts to customers,” said one Europe-based Iranian businessman with links to the Islamic Republic.

China has played a large role. Chinese banks are more welcoming than other Asian lenders to Iranian businessmen and still open letters of credit. Iran’s government seems to have convinced China and other Asian oil customers to accept barter deals for oil sales.

Meanwhile, Iranian businessmen say small European banks, notably those in crisis-hit economies, still help with financial transactions to Iran through foreign nationals and money transactions to countries such as Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and some Persian Gulf Arab Gulf states. Businessmen, however, refuse to reveal the names of the European banks involved.

It is difficult for the U.S. to track transfers. Many Iranian expatriates – who are estimated to number at least 2m worldwide – hold dual nationality. They may be tempted by the high commissions on offer from the Iranian government or businessmen to help them circumvent sanctions.

Transferring money this way takes time. It can lead to delays in imports of raw materials for factories and prices have risen. But while Iran’s currency has lost nearly half its value against the dollar over the past year and inflation has shot up 23 percent, according to official figures, the average Iranian consumer has yet to notice shortages. Supermarkets and retail shops are still fully stocked with domestic and imported foods as well as luxury goods.
 
High oil prices help, too. As long as oil stays at about $100 a barrel, Iranian observers and western diplomats in Tehran say, then Iran should be able to continue its plans.

Iran admits giving WMDs to terrorists

Rogue state threatens Israel over Syria

By Reza Kahlili

Israel will be obliterated by chemical, microbial and nuclear bombs, Iran is warning, but those weapons of mass destruction will be used first on Tel Aviv by Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad at the start of a decades-old Muslim dream of destroying the Jewish state.

An alarming commentary last week in Mashregh, the media outlet of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, confirmed that the Islamic regime not only has WMDs but has armed its terrorist proxies with them. Mashregh speaks for the regime.

It warned Israel that if the fighting in Syria does not stop, an all-out attack on the Jewish state will be launched and that at zero hour, Tel Aviv will be the first city to be destroyed.

“The threat to retaliate against Israel with weapons of mass destruction is credible,” said Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, who previously served on the House Armed Services Committee and with the CIA. “A highly credible source in 2005 warned that a decision had been made at the highest level of the Iranian government to arm numerous ballistic missiles with chemical and biological warheads to retaliate against Israel if Iran’s vital interests were endangered. The fall of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad would constitute endangerment of Iran’s vital interest.”

The commentary said that for 18 months, Israel, with all its power, has tried to reshape Islamic movements that have targeted the “Zionists” into a conflict between Muslims, with Syria at the center of its efforts.

The Mashregh column charged that Israel is behind the Syrian crisis in order to strategically change the geopolitics of the region and defeat one of the main players in the Islamic world’s “resistance front.” It warned Israel that with the direction it has chosen, “There is a dead end, and the threat of mass killing awaits.”

The commentary recalled the doctrine of the founder of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: “If they stand against our religion, we will stand against their world. If all this bloodshed is to provide a better future for Israel, we will destroy their world.”

The lengthy analysis claimed that several forces are involved on both the diplomatic and military fronts to break the Syrian “resistance front.”

It cited Turkish forces on Syria’s border with that NATO country but also claimed there are American forces along the Golan Heights and in Jordan, and Saudi, Qatar and French forces at the Syrian border with Lebanon.

“Their defeat from the fronts within [Syria] and the movement of their forces on the borders are signs that the world’s Zionists have lost hope on the capability of [anti-Assad] terrorists against Syrian forces and now are looking for an opportunity to get the armed forces of others involved,” the commentary said.

A strategic look at the situation in Syria, it said, shows that in order to safeguard Damascus and Bashar Assad’s regime, it is necessary to destroy “the center responsible for these destructions, which will force the enemy to retreat.” To that end, Iran will break “the security of Israel by targeting Tel Aviv.”

The commentary, citing the weak economies in America and Europe, said that in an all-out confrontation between the “resistance front” and Israel, the West will stay out of it, not wanting to fight Syria with a military of 220,000 military personnel and 240,000 reserves, Iran’s massive forces and Hezbollah.

Should Israel and its allies succeed in unraveling Syria so the legitimate Assad regime loses control, the commentary said, there are but two scenarios:

“Groups armed with weapons of mass destruction (chemical, microbial and nuclear bombs), which have been obtained on the black market, will surely target Tel Aviv.

“Other countries with different motivations from revenge to a change in the balance of power in the region looking for the elimination of Israel from the world’s map will use the chaos created without accepting any responsibility.”

Iran’s response to a war in the region unpredictable: admiral

TEHRAN – The deputy commander of the Iranian Navy has said that if a war breaks out in the region, Iran’s response would be unpredictable.   

“It is not predictable that what will be Iran’s response if a war breaks out in the region, and this issue is still a confusing issue for extra-regional forces and the United States,” Rear Admiral Gholam Reza Khadem-Bigham said in an interview with the Al-Alam News Network on Thursday.

In reply to a question about the capability of Iranian naval forces to block the Strait of Hormuz, he said, “Iran’s response in regard to the Strait of Hormuz, which is one of the important regions in the world for the shipment of oil… is unclear and they are not able to (predict) our response.”   
 
On the current situation in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman and the presence of foreign forces in the region, he said that the global arrogance (forces of imperialism) is trying to suggest that the situation in the region is tense and promotes Iranophobia, but Iran’s strong presence in the region and its friendly relations with regional countries have so far foiled their plots.
 
On the Navy’s decision to send vessels to Atlantic Ocean, Khadem-Bigham said that the decision has been made at the behest of the Supreme Leader who has said that naval vessels have the capability and the right to be present on the open seas to the point that they do not threaten the interests of other countries.     

Was Iran behind coordinated Islamist attacks on Egypt and Israel from Sinai?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

The initial Egyptian and Israeli accounts of the attacks in which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed and the Israeli border crashed Sunday night, Aug. 5, don’t match up: Egypt points the finger at the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip; Israel at Sinai Salafits. debkafile postulates a third option: Tehran put Gaza Strip Islamists and/or Palestinian proxies together with a Sinai al Qaeda cell for a coordinated attack on Egyptian and Israeli military targets to avenge the presence of al Qaeda in the anti-Assad revolt in Syria under the Western-Arab aegis. That would signal the spillover of the Syrian crisis into two more Middle East countries.

The gunmen first stormed an Egyptian commando post in Sinai with bombs, grenades and sidearms, killing at least 16 Egyptian soldiers, wounding many more and taking several hostages. A quantity of weapons and two armored vehicles were seized.

According to Egyptian sources, all ten gunmen infiltrated Sinai from the Gaza Strip through the smuggling tunnels. They were disguised as Sinai Bedouin.

In contrast, the Israeli military spokesman tagged the gunmen as Sinai Salafist Bedouin tied to al Qaeda. He denied there was any connection with the IDF’s targeting of two Popular Resistance Committees earlier Sunday after they were identified as the perpetrators of the June 18 shooting of an Israeli border fence workman.

The IDF also claimed it had been forewarned of the plot to attack the Kerem Shalom terminal opposite the Egyptian post and were therefore prepared for the gunmen’s incursion aboard two captured Egyptian vehicles for the purpose of snatching Israeli soldiers. Israel bombed the vehicle that got through from the air and by artillery. Seven terrorists were gunned down as they fled. There were no Israeli casualties.

The army spokesman did not indicate whether the Egyptians had also been forewarned.

The IDF version, if it is correct, exposes the most ambitious operation al Qaeda has ever mounted from Sinai. The jihadists, even in their biggest outrages in Iraq and Afghanistan - or Syria today – rarely carried through an operation this complex against one military base after another in two different countries.

Its features do, however, recall Palestinian terrorist strikes on Israeli military positions in the Gaza Strip at the height of their 2000-2003 war on Israel. In that sense, the Egyptian version pointing to Gaza as the source rings true. And indeed, the enclave’s Hamas rulers hastened to condemn the attack and block the Gaza-Sinai smuggling tunnels first thing Monday, Aug. 6, and a Hamas leader, Mahmoud A-Zahar, admitted Palestinians may have been complicit.

Neither Israel nor Egypt has mentioned a third option, which in the view of debkafile’s counter-terror analysts is the most sinister of them all, namely that Iran’s proxy in the enclave, the Palestinian Jihad Islami, which operates under the command of the Al Qods Brigades operations center in Beirut, was told to muster al Qaeda jihadists in Sinai for the coordinated attacks. Iranian officers posted in Beirut would then have orchestrated the combined operation, bringing to bear their long experience of setting up terrorist campaigns against Western and Arab targets – Saudi Arabia in 2003 and 2004; Iraq up to the present day and Afghanistan, against US and NATO forces.

If that is what happened, it would be the first time Tehran has harnessed al Qaeda to lash out out against Egyptian and Israeli military targets as a riposte for the presence of al Qaeda fighters in the revolt against Bashar Assad.

Just a few hours earlier, Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani declared: "The fire that has been ignited in Syria will take the fearful (Israelis) with it.”

That was also the first time Tehran had explicitly threatened that the Syrian conflict would spill over into Israel.

Khamenei Warns Iran’s Top Leaders: WAR IN WEEKS

DEBKAfile
 
On July 27, just before Friday prayers, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei summoned top Iranian military chiefs for what he called “their last war council.”

“We’ll be at war within weeks,” he told the gathering, debkafile’s exclusive Iranian and intelligence sources disclose.

Present were Defense Minister General Ahmad Vahidi, Khamenei’s military adviser General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, Armed Forces Chief Major General Seyed Hassan Firuzabadi, Revolutionary Guards Corps commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari and Al Qods Brigades chief General Qassem Soleimani. The commanders of the air force, the navy and ground forces were also there.

Each of the participants was tapped to report on the readiness of his branch or sector for shouldering its contingency mission.

While retaliation had been exhaustively drilled in regular military exercises in the past year, Khamenei ordered the biggest fortification project in Iran’s history to save its nuclear program from even the mightiest of America’s super-weapons. Rocks are being gathered from afar, piled on key nuclear installations, covered with many tons of poured concrete and finally plated with steel.

That same Friday, the US Air force unveiled its new Massive Ordnance Penetrators. Each bunker buster weighs 30,000 pounds and is able to penetrate 60 feet of reinforced concrete.

Turning to retaliation, the war council endorsed a battery of paybacks for potential US and/or Israeli pre-emptive strikes against its nuclear program. They would start by announcing enhanced uranium enrichment up to 60 percent - that is close to weapons grade.

Oft-tested ballistic missiles, Shehab-3, would be loosed against Israel, Saudi Arabia and American Middle East and Gulf military installations.

Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas and Jihad Islami in Gaza stand ready to pitch in against Israel with attacks from the north and the southwest.

Saudi oil export terminals would be blown up and mines sown in the Strait of Hormuz to impede the export of one-fifth of the world’s oil.

Khamenei put before his war council a timeline of weeks for the coming conflict – September or October.

WATCH VIDEO HERE

Iran will stand by Syria under any condition: Majlis speaker

TEHRAN – Iranian nation and government, as before, will stand by the Syrian nation and government under any circumstances, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani told Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem during a meeting in Tehran late on Sunday.

Larijani said that a great regional and international conspiracy has been hatched against Syria because of its tough stance against the Zionist regime, and the West is angry about this.

Commenting on foreign intervention in Syria, Larijani said that the Syrian government, through resistance against terrorist groups, has proved that it has “a strong base” and is able to resolve difficult crises.

During the meeting, Muallem appreciated the Islamic Republic’s stance toward Syria and said that the Syrian nation will never forget the Iranian nation’s brotherly support.

Arrogant powers only seeking to save Zionist regime

In a separate meeting with Muallem on Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that NATO and the governments that have no respect for justice and freedom undoubtedly cannot give these values to nations as a gift.

He added that the governments are only seeking to save the Zionist regime and establish their domination in the region.

He also expressed hope that security and stability would be promoted in Syria as soon as possible through the vigilance of the Syrian nation and government.

Iran rapidly gaining new capabilities to strike at U.S. warships in Persian Gulf: analysts

U.S. and Middle Eastern analysts say Iran is rapidly gaining new capabilities to strike at U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, amassing an arsenal of sophisticated anti-ship missiles while expanding its fleet of fast-attack boats and submarines, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The new systems are giving Iran’s commanders new confidence that they could quickly damage or destroy U.S. ships if hostilities erupt, the analysts say.

Iran’s advances have fueled concerns about U.S. vulnerabilities during the opening hours of a conflict in the Persian Gulf.

Increasingly accurate short-range missiles - combined with Iran’s use of “swarm” tactics involving hundreds of heavily armed patrol boats - could strain the defensive capabilities of even the most modern U.S. ships, current and former military analysts say.

In recent weeks, as nuclear talks with world powers have faltered and tensions have risen, Iran has repeated threats to shut down shipping in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region. Its leaders also have warned of massive retaliation for any attacks on its nuclear facilities.

Last week, Iran’s Foreign Ministry declared that the presence of U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf constituted a “real threat” to the region’s security.

Pentagon officials have responded by sending more ships, urged on by Congress as well as U.S. allies in the region. This month, the Navy announced that it would deploy the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis to the Middle East four months ahead of schedule. The shift will keep two carriers in the Persian Gulf region.

The United States also has announced new military exercises in the region, including a mine-sweeping drill in the Persian Gulf, and has moved to add new radar stations and land-based missile-defense batteries in Qatar.

Iran’s increased power to retaliate has led some military experts to question the wisdom of deploying aircraft carriers and other expensive warships to the Persian Gulf if a conflict appears imminent.

A 2009 study prepared for the Naval War College warns of Iran’s increasing ability to “execute a massive naval ambush” in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway dotted with small islands and inlets and perfectly suited for the kind of asymmetric warfare preferred by Iran’s commanders.

Since 2009, analysts say, Iran has added defensive and offensive capabilities. Some of them have been on display in recent months in a succession of military drills, including a missile exercise in early July dubbed Great Prophet 7.

In April Pentagon assessment noted that Iran’s arsenal now includes ballistic missiles with “seekers” that enable them to maneuver toward ships during flight.

Modern U.S. warships are equipped with multiple defense systems, such as the ship-based Aegis missile shield. But Iran has sought to neutralize the U.S. technological advantage by honing an ability to strike from multiple directions at once. The emerging strategy relies not only on mobile missile launchers but also on new mini-submarines, helicopters, and hundreds of heavily armed small boats known as fast-attack craft.

These highly maneuverable small boats, some barely as long as a subway car, have become a cornerstone of Iran’s strategy for defending the Persian Gulf against a much larger adversary. The vessels can rapidly deploy Iran’s estimated 2,000 anti-ship mines or mass in groups to strike large warships from multiple sides at once, like a cloud of wasps attacking much larger prey.

A Middle Eastern intelligence official who helps coordinate strategy for the Persian Gulf with U.S. counterparts said some Navy ships could find themselves in a “360-degree threat environment,” simultaneously in the cross hairs of adversaries on land, in the air, at sea, and even underwater.

“This is the scenario that is giving people nightmares,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in discussing strategy for defending against a possible Iranian attack.

The Iranian naval buildup is described by U.S. officials as part of an effort by the Islamic Republic to bolster its military credibility in the region.

The Pentagon’s April assessment said Iran was making steady progress in developing ballistic missiles capable of striking targets in Israel and beyond.

“Iran has the capacity to attack, from Argentina to Venezuela, in Asia, in Europe and throughout the Middle East,” Danielle Pletka, a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said Wednesday in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It seems naive to believe it does not have the capacity to launch attacks in the United States.”

Big Russian fleet nears Syria. Iran to fight regime change as foreign forces pile up

DEBKAfile Special Report

Russian, Western and Arab forces were piling up on Syrian borders Wednesday, July 25, bringing closer a war confrontation which could spur the Assad regime into making good on its threat to use chemical weapons against “external aggression.”

Based on this reading, Moscow added its voice Tuesday to that of US President Obama and warned Bashar Assad against using chemical weapons in view of “its commitments under the international convention it ratified prohibiting the use of poisonous gases as a method of warfare.”

debkafile’s military sources: With operational intelligence deployment and electronic stations positioned inside Syria, the Russians are better placed than any other outsiders to know what is happening on Syria’s battlefields. Their warning must therefore be tied to solid information confirming Washington’s assessment that Assad is dangerously close to deciding to use his chemical and biological weapons in a way that would precipitate a regional conflict.
  
Israel, Turkey and Jordan would be the first targets on his list.

The immediacy of the peril, debkafile’s military sources report, has speeded the arrival of Russian warships to Syria to counter a potential Western, Arab or Israeli assault on the embattled country.

The Russian Ministry of Defense, which rarely discloses Russian military movements outside its borders, announced early Wednesday morning, July 25 that a fleet of Russian warships had passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean.

The fleet is headed by the anti-submarine and anti-aircraft Admiral Chabanenko warship and consists of another three vessels carrying a large number of Russian marines. This fleet will rendezvous with a Russian flotilla standing by in the Mediterranean since July 21, detached from Russian Black Fleet and composed of the Smetlivy figate and  two large landing craft loaded with Russian marines. This group awaited the main force before approaching Syria.

The fact that Russia is massing large numbers of marines off the Syrian coast looks as though a landing on Syrian soil is on Moscow’s cards.

The Russian marine contingent,  debkafile’s sources say, will stand ready - either to come to the aid of the Assad regime or to serve as a bargaining chip for a last-minute deal between Moscow and Washington for ending the war by establishing a transitional military regime in Damascus whose makeup would be agreed between them and Assad.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hinted at this possibility on Tuesday, July 24, when she said: “We do believe that it is not too late for the Assad regime to commence with planning for a transition.”

But Clinton also hinted, in a more threatening tone, that a situation is developing for the creation of safe zones in rebel-controlled areas of Syria. “More and more territory is being taken and it will, eventually, result in a safe haven inside Syria which will then provide a base for further actions by the opposition,” she said.

Clinton didn’t name the potential protectors of those havens. However, since the Syrian rebels are short of manpower, Western, Muslim or Arab defenders would have to be called in.

Wednesday, British military sources in London said the moment is rushing forward for British forces to get involved in what is happening in Syria. Iran and Turkey are not indifferent either.

Deputy Iranian Revolutionary Guard chief, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, warned on Tuesday, July 24, that Tehran would not permit regime change in Damascus and if Syria’s enemies intervened, Iran would hit them hard. The Iranian commander pointed a finger at Saudi Arabia and Qatar, adding that the US and Israel are at the forefront of the comprehensive campaign against Syria but are being beaten back.

This was the first time Tehran had explicitly threatened military intervention in Syria.

Wednesday, Turkey shut its border crossings to Syria. Military sources in Ankara confirmed that massive Turkish military strength had been on the move toward the Syrian border.

Nouriel Roubini: Five factors that could derail the global economy

By Edward Krudy, Reuters

NEW YORK – Economist Nouriel Roubini is standing by his prediction for a global “perfect storm” next year as economies the world over slow down or shudder to a complete halt, geopolitical risk grows and the eurozone’s debt crisis accelerates.

Roubini, the New York University professor dubbed “Dr. Doom” for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, highlighted five factors that could derail the global economy.

Those factors are:

•A worsening of the debt crisis in Europe
•Tax increases and spending cuts in United Sates that may push the world’s biggest economy into recession
•A hard landing for China’s economy
•Further slowing in emerging markets
•A military confrontation with Iran

“Next year is the time when the can becomes too big to kick it down (the road)…then we have a global perfect storm,” Roubini said in a television interview with Reuters.

Roubini’s gloomy 2013 outlook isn’t new, but it’s getting more purchase as slowing economies and Europe’s debt crisis drive turbulence in financial markets.

After what he expects will be a flat year for U.S. stocks in 2012, Roubini said the equity market could face a sharp correction next year, with little the Federal Reserve can do to stop it.

“There might be a weak rally because people are being cheered by more quantitative easing by (Chairman Ben) Bernanke and the Fed, but if the economy is weakening, that is going to put downward pressure on earnings growth,” said Roubini.

Roubini said the Federal Reserve may be pushed toward unconventional policy options as the simulative effect of successive waves of quantitative easing – effectively printing money to buy government bonds – diminishes over time.

Unconventional policy could include “targeting the 10-year Treasury at 1 percent, doing credit easing rather than quantitative easing, targeting nominal GDP, price-level targeting and lots of stuff that is more esoteric,” said Roubini. “Eventually if everything goes wrong, they can even buy equities.”

IRGC not scared of USA’s ‘scrap metal’ aircraft carriers: Iranian general

By Tehran Times

MASHHAD - The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has no fear of the giant U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and views them as just “scrap metal”, a top IRGC commander said on Tuesday.

“The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has never had a fear of large U.S. aircraft carriers, the thunder of U.S. missiles, and the extra-regional enemies, and in their view, these … are nothing more than scrap metal,” the deputy commander of the IRGC, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, told a seminar of IRGC Naval Force commanders in Mashhad.

If Damascus falls, Israel and its gas fields feared threatened

DEBKAfile  Exclusive Report

Syrian military forces were gathered in Tuesday, July 17, to save Damascus.

Tanks and armored vehicles were positioned in strength in the capital’s center and around government buildings. However, the noise and fury of battle in the Syrian capital Tuesday, July 17, were produced, debkafile’s military sources report, by six battalions of Bashar Assad’s loyal Allawite militia in clashes with the rebels who captured the two southern suburbs of Meidan and Tadmon Monday. They are trying to pound the enemy into extinction before its forces reach central Damascus.

The two beleaguered districts are home to a quarter of the capital’s 1.8 million inhabitants.

The Syrian general staff has withdrawn its command headquarters to a well-fortified complex on Shuhada Street in the capital’s center.

If Damascus falls and Assad is cornered, the entire region stands in peril of wider repercussions, because neither he nor Tehran will take defeat lying down.

debkafile’s military sources report their campaign will be paced and scaled according to the momentum of the Syrian rebels’ advance on Bashar Assad’s door-step, which could be drawn out and bloody.

On the Iranian-Hizballah list are Middle East oil installations as well as Israeli, US, Turkish, Saudi and Jordanian strategic targets.

Saturday, the Cypriot police captured a Hizballah terrorist before he could blow up an Israeli El Al flight and tourist buses in Limassol.

Tehran is feared to be focusing on the Mediterranean island as part of a plot to set Israel’s Mediterranean gas field Tamar on fire. The field is 80 kilometers west of Haifa
It would be a spectacular curtain-raiser for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and for strikes against Gulf oil installations.

Navy Commander, Maj. Gen. Ram Rothberg called last week for an extra five warships and submarines to safeguard Israel’s burgeoning gas fields at the cost of a billion dollars.

The Syrian ruler has stoked up the menace by moving out of storage missiles and shells armed with mustard gas, sarin nerve gas and cyanide stockpiled for years.

They are on operational readiness at Homs, Latakia and Aleppo and, according to Nawaf Fares,
Syrian ex-ambassador to Iraq who defected to the opposition, may already have been used against rebel concentrations.

The longer the battle for Damascus goes on, the greater the danger that the Syrian ruler will release his poison-tipped missiles against Israel, Turkey and Jordan.

‘Enemies trying to create social crisis in Iran’

TEHRAN - Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said on Sunday that the Western intelligence agencies that participated in the sedition of 2009 have carefully reviewed the factors behind their failure and are planning to create another type of instability, like a social crisis, in Iran. 
 
He said that the enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran are conducting a propaganda campaign against the country in order to give the impression that Iran’s system is ineffective and inefficient.
 
He went on to say that the enemies who have a problem with the system of velayat-e faqih (rule by the supreme jurisprudent) in Iran want to convince Iranian citizens that the country’s system is inefficient because it is the velayat-e faqih system. 

One of the enemies’ objectives is to foment discontent among the Iranian people, he said, adding that the enemies are now training some youths to spark street clashes in the country.

“The enemies intend to sow discord between the Iranian nation and government… however, we should comprehensively counter their plots,” he stated.  

Commenting on the Islamic Awakening wave rolling across the region, Moslehi said that the enemies do not want Iran to be a role model for regional countries, and hence they have invented “the phenomenon of Iranophobia.”