Is Israel really planning to strike Iran soon?

By Michael Weiss

Nahum Barnea is a bit like the Andrew Marr of Israel: a respected, sober journalist who can always be relied upon as a barometer for establishment thinking. So when Barnea published his column last Friday in Yedioth Ahronoth, the highest circulation daily in Israeli, explaining that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak were acting as “one body, with one goal” to militarily destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, the response was a bit like hearing on the Politics Show that David Cameron was seriously mulling resignation. It was the kind of rumour that is impossible to contain.

Crucial to Barnea’s scoop was that the most stalwart Israeli cabinet opponent of a strike on Iran, the ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, had now been converted to the side of pre-emption. The rest of the Israeli media took it from here, first excitedly reporting that the Israel Defense Forces had suspiciously test-fired a ballistic missile – rumoured to be the long-range surface-to-surface Jericho – out of the Palmachim Air Base. (The IDF test-fires missiles all the time, but never mind.)

Next it was suspiciously pointed out that the Israeli Air Force had just concluded a sophisticated exercise at a Nato air base in Sardinia featuring combat drills with Italian and Dutch fighter jets, 2,400 km distance runs and mid-air refuelling – exactly what it had better practice for a jaunt into Persia. (Ah, but such joint Israeli-Nato air manoeuvres, it was disclosed below the fold, are performed every two years.)

Finally, seasonal change played its part in escalating the frenzy, as many analysts went on record saying that any strike this year had got to be soon because winter cloud cover would obstruct aircraft targeting systems.

What makes this round of will-they-or-won’t-they speculation about Israel’s motives different is the International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest bulletin on Iran, due to be published on November 8. According to a Telegraph exclusive, Western diplomats who have seen the report say that this time the IAEA has got “substantiated evidence from intelligence reports, interviews with Iranian scientists and on-the-ground inspections that Iran is carrying out a nuclear weapons programme in parallel to its civilian energy goals.”

According to The Guardian, which has spent the last five years denying that Iran was pursuing any such weapons programme at all, unnamed MOD and Whitehall officials think that the US “may decide” to speed up its own plans of attack. In that case, British military strategists are “examining” whether Royal Navy ships and submarines armed with Tomahawk missiles would back up any forthcoming American air campaign. Yet even The Guardian concedes that the MOD has got “no hard and fast blueprints for conflict” while “insiders concede that preparations there and at the Foreign Office have been under way for some time.” (On the whole, defence correspondent Nick Hopkins hedges his bets more than a government press secretary.)

But like the butterfly that flaps its wings in Malaysia and causes a hurricane in Seattle, Barnea’s little essay is a case study in chaos theory. The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl shrewdly observes that Israel is probably not going to hit Iran without Washington’s approval, and that approval is unlikely to be given in the midst of Barack Obama’s presidential re-election campaign. However, what this news cycle has cleverly done is refocus all diplomatic attention on Iran’s quest for WMD, a quest that the West, the Arab world and Israel are united in wanting to stop. (In this context, it’s worth asking if Netanyahu is really as furious about the leaking of cabinet discussions as he makes out.)

Operation Babylon, which ended Saddam Hussein’s nuclear fantasy and upset the Reagan administration only superficially, happened decades ago when there weren’t quite so many US troops stationed in the region trying to secure tenuous new democracies. Ayatollah Khamenei’s revenge for having his long-sought toy taken away might include triggering Hamas and Hezbollah proxy attacks against Israel or even wheeling Iran’s own Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) into more overt acts of terrorism against Western or American targets. The elite Quds Force of the IRGC was recently fingered in a complex assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to the US.

A few years ago, I heard retired IDF commander Moshe Ya'alon tell a room full of people that Israel had so well war-gamed a strike on Iran that it could bomb an active nuclear reactor in such a way that there’d be no fallout radiation. But, he went on to stress, he’d still prefer it if George W Bush undertook this burdensome task himself, regretting that the invasion of Iraq seemed to marginalise such a contingency. Years later, and now back in government as Netanyahu’s Strategic Affairs Minister, Ya’alon is still singing the same tune, with a less friendly White House to contend with.

Steve Jobs: how did he do it?

By Alexis Dormandy

I met Steve Jobs a couple of times in 2005, to talk about mobile phones. This was two years before the iPhone was launched. At the time it was rumoured it would be within three months. He wouldn’t launch the iPhone until it met his standards. The experience changed the way I look at businesses and leadership.

What was it about Steve Jobs that meant he managed to transform four industries? The personal computer (Mac), music (iPod), mobile phones (iPhone) and computing as lifestyle (iPad) will never be the same again – and that's before we mention his creation of another $7bn company in Pixar, which has won more than 20 Academy Awards. If he’d achieved just one of those feats, he would be one of the greatest business people of this era. To have achieved all of them is more than just talent and luck – it’s doing things differently.

Steve Jobs had an almost entirely unique combination of creative talents. Some people are brilliant at technology – they are problem solvers with a deep understanding of technology. Some people have an empathetic understanding of the customer – they can see what they really want, and can combine form with function. Some people who can work out new ways of making money out of things. Virtually no one can do all of these.

People who are brilliant at just one of these can change the world. Technologists like Sergey Brin launch businesses like Google. Consumerists like Richard Branson create businesses like Virgin. Commercial people like Jack Welch make businesses like GE dominate their markets. Steve Jobs could do all of these, brilliantly.

There were plenty of MP3 players before the iPod. But Steve Jobs invented an MP3 player with one button. A three-year-old could use it.

OS X as an operating system (which emerged from NeXT which he launched during the gap between his two periods at Apple) was simpler, slimmer and fundamentally more usable than the Windows alternative.

When Steve launched the iPhone, he didn’t do what everyone else would do, which would be sell it to everyone. He got the mobile carriers to compete for it – only one carrier per country got it. That got him a great financial deal, and unique access to the mobile networks. Once his position in the market was secure, he sold it to everyone. It has made Apple billions.

But above all else, what Steve had, that no one else had, was a totally different way of running the building of a product.

Most large companies have a CEO who sets overall direction. He or she then gets people to work out the detailed plans. They get some people to work out the product, others to work out how to sell it, others to do the marketing, others to do the numbers. Each of these people then chops up their task and delegates in down to the people who work for them. So a bunch of 20-30 year olds do most of the creative work, and teams of project managers try to keep everyone running in the same direction.

This takes forever, so then the CEO forces it to be done by a date, and it eventually the wonderful idea emerges looking decidedly average.

Steve Jobs didn’t delegate. He had the vision in his head and got other people to execute it for him. He cared about the details. He cared about the typeface, the iconography. He had a belligerent commitment to things being simple to use.

Because he had a holistic vision, and he made sure everything was done the way he wanted it, everything worked with everything else. iTunes works with your iPod. Addresses synched between the Mail on your Mac and your iPhone. You plug a camera into your MacBook at iPhoto automatically launches and sucks in the photos. These weren’t five products in Steve’s mind, they were one product. That only happened because there was one man with a vision of the whole, who got people to do it his way.

Steve Jobs has left this world a better place. He has created businesses that employ tens of thousands of people. He has made frustrating, unintelligible tasks simple. He has given us new services that we enjoy and which bring us closer together. And he has entertained us.

He has also made many of us endure the “we should do it like Apple” comment in more business meetings than I care to remember. But to do it like Apple we have to do it like Steve. Our leaders should be distinctly talented. And they shouldn’t delegate, they should drive the important things to happen. Our leaders should care about the details. Most of all they should have a personal quality standard that they put on everything they do.

Thank you, Steve, for setting the bar higher.

Greek prime minister George Papendreou to step down after deal agreed with opposition leader

Greece political leaders sealed a pact to form a national unity government on Sunday night after the prime minister announced his imminent resignation under pressure from a European ultimatum.

By Damien McElroy, Athens

European leaders forced George Papendreou to act under the threat of national bankruptcy.

An agreement in principle was reached between Mr Papandreou and Antonis Samaras, the conservative opposition, leader after an hour and a half meeting with the president on Sunday night.

The two men will meet on Monday to decide on the composition of the new government, which will take office after Mr Papandreou formally tenders his resignation. A presidency statement said they will discuss who would head the coalition government, but that Papandreou would not lead the new administration.

"Tomorrow there will be new communication between the prime minister and the opposition leader on who will be the leader of the new government," the statement said.

The statement made no mention of how long the interim government would last.

The European Union gave Greece 24 hours on Sunday to explain how it will form a unity government to enact a bailout agreement.

Mr Papandreou and his opponents have been scrambling to hammer out a deal ahead of a meeting by finance ministers of euro countries on Monday, to show that Greece is serious about taking steps needed to stave off bankruptcy.

The interim government is expected to be in place for about three to four months in order to ensure a new European debt deal and secure a vital installment of bailout loans that Greece needs to avoid default.

The initial agreement came after a week of intense political drama sparked by Mr Papandreou's announcement he was taking the debt deal to a referendum.

He withdrew the plan on Thursday after intense opposition from European leaders and MPs.

UN report 'to suggest Iran nuclear weapons work'

by BBC

The UN's atomic watchdog is planning to reveal evidence that Iran has been working secretly to develop a nuclear weapons capability, diplomats say.

The evidence is said to include intelligence that Iran made computer models of a nuclear warhead.

Iranian officials say the International Atomic Energy Agency report, due next week, is a fabrication.

Israeli officials have said a military option to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons is drawing nearer.

Diplomats, speaking anonymously, have been briefing journalists on the IAEA's next quarterly report on Iran.

They said the report would also include satellite images of what the IAEA believes is a large steel container used for high-explosives tests related to nuclear arms.

Iran says that its nuclear programme is exclusively to generate power for civilian purposes.

But the IAEA has reported for some years that there are unresolved questions about its programme and has sought clarification of Iran's secretive nuclear activities.

Of next week's report, one Western diplomat told Reuters news agency: "There are bits of it which clearly can only be for clandestine nuclear purposes. It is a compelling case."

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the alleged evidence was a fabrication and part of a multi-pronged US smear campaign against his country.

'Ticking clock'

Israeli President Shimon Peres, when asked by Israeli television if "something was bringing us closer to a military option rather than a diplomatic one", he replied: "I believe so."

He continued: "I estimate that intelligence services of all these countries are looking at the ticking clock, warning leaders that there was not much time left.

"Iran is nearing atomic weapons and in the time left we must turn to the world's nations and demand [they] fulfil their promise... which is not merely passing sanctions. What needs to be done must be done and there is a long list of options."

Analysts say they believe Iran may still be several years away from having nuclear weapons.

Doctor trials laser treatment to change eye colour

by BBC

A US doctor is trying to pioneer a laser treatment that changes patients' eye colour.

Dr Gregg Homer claims 20 seconds of laser light can remove pigment in brown eyes so they gradually turn blue.

He is now seeking up to $750,000 (£468,000) of investment to continue clinical trials.

However, other eye experts urge caution because destroying eye pigment can cause sight problems if too much light is allowed to enter the pupil.

Stroma Medical, the company set up to commercialise the process, estimates it will take at least 18 months to finish the safety tests.

'Irreversible'

The process involves a computerised scanning system that takes a picture of the iris and works out which areas to treat.

The laser is then fired, using a proprietary pattern, hitting one spot of the iris at a time.

When it has hit every spot it then starts again, repeating the process several times.

However the treatment only takes 20 seconds.

"The laser agitates the pigment on the surface of the iris," Dr Homer - the firm's chairman and chief scientific officer - told the BBC.

"We use two frequencies that are absorbed by dark pigment, and it is fully absorbed so there is no danger of damage to the rest of the eye.

"It heats it up and changes the structure of the pigment cells. The body recognises they are damaged tissue and sends out a protein. This recruits another feature that is like little pac-men that digest the tissue at a molecular level."

After the first week of treatment, the eye colour turns darker as the tissue changes its characteristics.

Then the digestion process starts, and after a further one to three weeks the blueness appears.

Since the pigment - called melanin - does not regenerate the treatment is irreversible.

Lasers are already used to remove the substance in skin to help treat brown spots and freckles.

Safety concerns

Other eye experts have expressed reservations.

"The pigment is there for a reason. If the pigment is lost you can get problems such as glare or double vision," said Larry Benjamin, a consultant eye surgeon at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in the UK.

"Having no eye pigment would be like having a camera aperture with a transparent blade. You wouldn't be able to control the light getting in."

Dr Homer said that he only removes the pigment from the eye's surface.

"This is only around one third to one half as thick as the pigment at the back of the iris and has no medical significance," he said.

He also claimed patients would be less sensitive to light than those born with blue eyes. He reasoned that brown-eyed people have more pigment in the other areas of their eyeballs, and most of it will be left untouched.

"We run tests for 15 different safety examination procedures. We run the tests before and after the treatment, and the following day, and the following weeks, and the following months and the following three months.

"Thus far we have no evidence of any injury."

Testing in Mexico

Dr Homer originally worked as an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles, but gave up full-time practice in the mid-1990s to study biology at Stanford University in California.

He said he filed his first patent for the laser treatment in 2001. But it was not until 2004 that he began carrying out experiments on animals at a hospital facility.

To fund his research he used his own savings, attracted investments from venture capital funds and secured a government grant. Dr Homer said he has raised $2.5m to date.

Tests on humans initially involved cadavers, and then moved on to live patients in Mexico in August 2010.

"From a regulatory perspective it is easier," Dr Homer said, "and I can speak Spanish fluently so I can closely monitor how everyone is doing."

Seventeen people have been treated so far. All are very short-sighted. They have been offered lens transplants in return for taking part.

Dr Homer said the work is checked by a board of ophthalmology experts to ensure it is up to standard.

The new funds will be used to complete safety trials with a further three people.

Stroma Medical then intends to raise a further $15m to manufacture hundreds of lasers and launch overseas - ideally within 18 months.

A US launch is planned in three years' time, because it takes longer to get regulatory approval there.

Stroma Medical believes the treatment will be popular; its survey of 2,500 people suggested 17% of Americans would want it if they knew it was completely safe. A further 35% would seriously consider it.

There is also evidence of a growing desire to alter eye colour overseas - a recent study in Singapore reported growing demand for cosmetic contact lenses.