A new twist was added to the longrunning media theme of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war with Iran when news stories seemed to suggest Monday that Netanyahu had ordered the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent attack on Iranian nuclear sites in [...]]]>
A new twist was added to the longrunning media theme of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war with Iran when news stories seemed to suggest Monday that Netanyahu had ordered the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent attack on Iranian nuclear sites in 2010.
Netanyahu backed down after Israeli Defence Forces chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Mossad director Meir Dagan opposed the order, according to the reports.
But the details of the episode provided in a report by Israel’s Channel 2 investigative news programme “Truth”, which aired Monday night, show that the Netanyahu order was not meant to be a prelude to an imminent attack on Iran. The order to put Israeli forces on the highest alert status was rejected by Ashkenazi and Dagan primarily because Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak had not thought through the risk that raising the alert status to the highest level could provoke unintended war with Iran.
All the participants, moreover, understood that Israel had no realistic military option for an attack on Iran.
Most stories about the episode failed to highlight the distinction between an order for war and one for the highest state of readiness, thus creating the clear impression that Netanyahu was preparing for war with Iran. The stories had to be read very carefully to discern the real significance of the episode.
The Israeli Ynet News report on the story carried the headline, “Was Israel on verge of war in 2010?” and a teaser asking, “Did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak try to drag Israel into a military operation in Iran without cabinet approval?”
AFP reported that Netanyahu and Barak “ordered the army to prepare an attack against Iranian nuclear installations.”
The Reuters story said Netanyahu and Barak “ordered Israeli defence chiefs in 2010 to prepare for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities but were rebuffed….”
And AP reported that the order from Netanyau was for a “high alert for a looming attack on Iran’s nuclear program” and that the episode “indicated that Israel was much closer to carrying out a strike at that time than was previously known.”
Washington Post blogger Max Fisher certainly got the impression from the press coverage that Netanyahu and Barak had “attempted to order the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent strike on Iran but were thwarted by other senior officials….” Fisher concluded that Netanyahu was “more resolved than thought to strike Iran….”
The coverage of the story thus appears to have pumped new life into the idea that Netanyahu is serious about attacking Iran, despite clear evidence in recent weeks that he has climbed down from that posture.
The details of the episode in the original Channel 2 programme as reported by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth suggest that none of the participants in the meeting believed that Netanyahu had decided on actual war with Iran.
The incident occurred, according to the programme, after a meeting of seven top cabinet ministers at an unspecified time in 2010. As Dagan and Ashkanazi were about to leave the meeting room, the programme recalls, Netanyahu ordered them to prepare the military for “the possibility of a strike” against Iran by putting the IDF on the highest level of readiness.
Netanyahu used the code word “F Plus” for the alert status, according to the Channel 2 programme.
Ashkenazi and Dagan reacted strongly to the order, and Netanyahu and Barak eventually backed down. But both Ashkenazi and Barak appear to agree that the issue was not whether Israel would actually attack Iran but the alert itself. Ashkenazi’s response indicated that he did not interpret it as a sign that Netanyahu intended to carry out an attack on Iran. “It’s not something you do if you’re not sure you want to follow through with it,” Ashkenazi was quoted as saying.
Barak sought to downplay the order for the high alert status, asserting that raising the alert level “did not necessarily mean war”.
“It is not true that creating a situation in which the IDF are on alert for a few hours or a few days to carry out certain operations forces Israel to go through with them,” the defence minister said.
Ashkenazi was not asserting, however, that Netanyahu would be forced to attack. Rather, he feared it would have the unintended consequence of convincing Iran that Israel did intend to attack and thus trigger a war.
The former IDF chief highlighted that danger in commenting, “This accordion produces music when you play with it,” according to “sources close to” Ashkenazi – the formula usually used when an official or ex-official does not wish to be quoted directly.
Barak also said Ashkenazi had responded that the IDF did not have the ability to carry out a strike against Iran. “Eventually, at the moment of truth, the answer that was given was that, in fact, the ability did not exist,” Barak is quoted as saying on the programme.
Significantly, Barak made no effort to deny the reality that the Israeli Air Force did not have the capability to carry out a successful attack against Iran. Instead he is blaming Ashkenazi for having failed to prepare Israeli forces for a possible attack.
Ashkenazi angrily denied that obviously political charge. “I prepared the option, the army was ready for a strike but I also said that a strike now would be a strategic mistake,” he is quoted as saying.
Israeli military leaders are still saying publicly that the IDF can carry out a strike. But while Ashkenazi is quoted as saying the army was “ready for a strike”, that is not the same as claiming that Israel had a military option that had any chance of success in derailing Iran’s enrichment programme. And in February 2011, he told then Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen that references to such a military option were “empty words”, because “Israel has no military option,” according to an earlier report by Yedioth Ahronoth.
Despite the public political feud between them, both Barak and Ashkenazi implied that the purpose of the high alert was to achieve a political effect rather than to prepare for an actual attack.
Both Ashkenazi and former Mossad director Dagan were apparently shocked that Netanyahu and Barak would be so irresponsible as to run the obvious risks of feigning preparations for a war with Iran. Dagan concluded that Netanyahu is unfit for leadership of the country – a point that he had made repeatedly since leaving his Mossad post in 2011.
Netanyahu sought to manipulate the supposed threat of military force against Iran to put pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama to adopt harsh sanctions against Iran and even get him to pledge to use force if Iran did not yield on its nuclear programme. The firm rebuff to that ploy by Obama last summer brought that phase of the Netanyahu military option ploy to an end, as indicated by his failure to include any implicit threat in his U.N. address in late August.
Netanyahu continues to insist publicly, however, that he is considering the military option against Iran. In an interview for the Channel 2 programme, he said, “We are serious, this is not a show. If there is no other way to stop Iran, Israel is ready to act.”
Israeli political observers have suggested that Netanyahu’s belligerent posture has now become primarily a theme of his campaign for reelection as prime minister. But as the coverage of the 2010 episode indicates, the news media have not yet abandoned the story of Netanyahu’s readiness to go to war against Iran.
*Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
]]>Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator had a rare “chat” with the head of the US delegation after talks between Tehran and world powers over the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme Thursday, officials said.
The “brief encounter” came after Iran rebuffed [...]]]>
Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator had a rare “chat” with the head of the US delegation after talks between Tehran and world powers over the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme Thursday, officials said.
The “brief encounter” came after Iran rebuffed a US offer of face-to-face discussions between Wendy Sherman and her counterpart Saeed Jalili at the last talks between Iran and world powers in Istanbul last month.
“Jalili paused to chat with Sherman as they were leaving one of the plenaries,” a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Why is this so threatening to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) that she actually tried to make it illegal? (Read Ali’s report from November here.)
]]>Now, however, both explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian Ambassador to [...]]]>
News media reported last week that Iran had flatly refused the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to its Parchin military test facility, based on a statement to reporters by IAEA Deputy Director General, Herman Nackaerts, that “We could not get access”.
Now, however, both explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA and the language of the new IAEA report indicate that Iran did not reject an IAEA visit to the base per se but was only refusing access as long as no agreement had been reached with the IAEA governing the modalities of cooperation.
That new and clarifying information confirms what I reported February 23. Based on the history of Iranian negotiations with the IAEA and its agreement to allow two separate IAEA visits to Parchin in 2005, the Parchin access issue is a bargaining chip that Iran is using to get the IAEA to moderate its demands on Iran in forging an agreement on how to resolve the years-long IAEA investigation into the “Possible Military Dimensions” of the Iranian nuclear program.
In an email to me and in interviews with Russia Today, Reuters, and the Fars News Agency, the Iranian Permanent Representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Iran told the high-level IAEA mission that it would allow access to Parchin once modalities of Iran-IAEA cooperation had been agreed on.
“We declared that, upon finalization of the modality, we will give access [to Parchin],” Soltanieh wrote in an email to me.
In the Russia Today interview on February 27, reported by Israel’s Haaretz and The Hindu in India but not by western news media, Soltanieh referred to two IAEA inspection visits to Parchin in January and November 2005 and said Iran needs to have “assurances” that it would not “repeat the same bitter experience, when they just come and ask for the access.” There should be a “modality” and a “frame of reference, of what exactly they are looking for, they have to provide the documents and exactly where they want [to go],” he said.
But Soltanieh also indicated that such an inspection visit is conditional on agreement on the broader framework for cooperation on clearing up suspicions of a past nuclear weapons program. “[I]n principle we have already accepted that when this text is concluded we will take these steps,” Soltanieh said.
The actual text of the IAEA report, dated February 24, provides crucial information about the Iranian position in the talks that is consistent with what Soltanieh is saying.
In its account of the first round of talks in late January on what the IAEA is calling a “structured approach to the clarification of all outstanding issues”, the report states: “The Agency requested access to the Parchin site, but Iran did not grant access to the site at that time [emphasis added].” That wording obviously implies that Iran was willing to grant access to Parchin if certain conditions were met.
On the February 20-21 meetings, the agency said that Iran “stated that it was still not able to grant access to that site.” There was likely a more complex negotiating situation behind the lack of agreement on a Parchin visit than had been suggested by Nackaerts and reported in western news media.
But not a single major news media report has reported the significant difference between initial media coverage on the Parchin access issue and the information now available from the initial IAEA report and Soltanieh. None have reported the language of the report indicating that Iran’s refusal to approve a Parchin visit in January was qualified by “at that time”.
Only AFP and Reuters quoted Soltanieh at all. Reuters, which actually interviewed Soltanieh, quoted him saying, “It was assumed that after we agreed on the modality, then access would be given.” But that quote only appears in the very last sentence of the article, several paragraphs after the reiteration of the charge that Iran “refused to grant [the IAEA] access” to Parchin.
The day after that story was published, Reuters ran another story focusing on the IAEA report without referring either to its language on Parchin or to Soltanieh’s clarification.
The Los Angeles Times ignored the new information and simply repeated the charge that Iran “refused to allow IAEA inspectors to visit Parchin military base”. Then it added its own broad interpretation that Iran “has refused to answer key questions about its nuclear development program”. Iran’s repeated assertions that the documents used to pose questions to it are fabricated were thus dismissed as non-qualified answers.
The Parchin access story entered a new phase today with a Reuters story quoting Deputy Director General Nackaerts in a briefing for diplomats as saying that there “may be some ongoing activities at Parchin which add urgency to why we want to go”. Nackaerts attributed that idea to an unnamed “Member State”, which is apparently suggesting that the site in question is being “cleaned up”.
The identity of that “Member State”, which the IAEA continues to go out of its way to conceal, is important, because if it is Israel, it reflects an obvious interest in convincing the world that Iran is working on nuclear weapons. As former IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei recounts on p. 291 of his memoirs, “In the late summer of 2009, the Israelis provided the IAEA with documents of their own, purportedly showing that Iran had continued with nuclear weapon studies until at least 2007.”
The news media should be including cautionary language any time information from an unnamed “Member State” is cited as the source for allegations of covert Iran nuclear weapons work. It is very likely to be from a State with a political agenda. But the unwritten guidelines for news media coverage of the IAEA and Iran, as we have seen in recent days, are obviously very different.
]]>- Pelley: So are you saying that Iran can have a nuclear weapon in 2012?
Panetta: It would probably be about a year before they can do it. Perhaps a little less. But one proviso, Scott, is if they have a hidden facility somewhere in Iran that may be enriching fuel.
Pelley: So that they can develop a weapon even more quickly…
Panetta: On a faster track….
Today a pentagon spokesperson told the AFP that Panetta’s comments were made “hypothetically” and that he was not suggesting that there was new intelligence pointing to secret facilities.
The ISIS’s David Albright said Panetta’s public speculations were “not helpful” in the absence of evidence and “definitely misleading.” He added that there was “low probability” that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon within a year without detection by inspectors and a military response.
Hawkish commentary aside, there is no concrete evidence to prove that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon or intends to. In fact, the most damning aspect of the latest IAEA report about Iran is its suggestion that the country is leaning towards “breakout capability”. This corresponds with U.S. intelligence assessments and means there’s still time to pursue diplomatic engagement with Iran.
Panetta’s “red line” comment also landed him a top spot on the front page of AIPAC’s website today. He appeared to suggest to Pelley that the U.S. was not only keeping the military option open, but that it would support Israel by taking “whatever steps necessary” to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. (As Joe Cirincione notes, he stopped just short of saying military force would be used):
- Panetta: Well, we share the same common concern. The United States does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us and that’s a red line, obviously, for the Israelis. If we have to do it we will deal with it.
Pelley: You just said if we have to do it we will come and do it. What is it?
Panetta: If they proceed and we get intelligence that they are proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon then we will take whatever steps necessary to stop it.
Pelley: Including military steps?
Panetta: There are no options off the table.
A disclaimer-like mention at the end of the transcript notes that Panetta told CBS News that “while Iran needs a year or less to assemble a weapon, he has no indication yet that the Iranians have made the decision to go ahead.”
Panetta did not take the opportunity to reiterate comments he made earlier this month about the calamity of a US war with Iran. The secretary told an audience at the pro-Israel Saban Center that an attack would “not destroy” Iran’s ability to produce weapons, would cause major “backlash” against the US along with “severe” economic consequences, strengthen the regime, and “could consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret.”
]]>Iran blamed the United States for a suicide attack in the Islamic Republic’s restive Southeast. While Iran is mostly a Shia country, the Southeast is home to a Sunni ethnic Baluchi population that straddles the border with Pakistan.
Iran [...]]]>
Iran blamed the United States for a suicide attack in the Islamic Republic’s restive Southeast. While Iran is mostly a Shia country, the Southeast is home to a Sunni ethnic Baluchi population that straddles the border with Pakistan.
Iran accused the United States of responsibility for a suicide attack on Wednesday that killed at least 39 people and wounded many more at a highly symbolic and emotionally charged mourning ceremony near a mosque in southeastern Iran.
“The advanced equipment and facilities of the perpetrators show that this attack was supported by the regional intelligence services of the United States,” said Ali Abdolahi, deputy for security at the Interior Ministry, in comments published on the official IRNA news agency Web site.
Mr. Abdolahi confirmed earlier news reports that two bombers detonated explosive-packed belts on Wednesday morning among crowds that had gathered outside the Imam Hussein Mosque in the city of Chabahar near the border with Pakistan. One of the attackers was said to have been identified by police and shot before setting off his explosives, to little effect. Reports from semi-official news agencies said that a third attacker was arrested by police.
While no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, the Times suggests that Jundullah may have been involved because one of the dead was from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gorps (IRGC), a group frequently targeted by Jundullah.
Jundullah, from the borders with Pakistan, claims to fight for the rights of Iran’s Sunni minority. Rumors have long circulated of U.S. support for Jundullah, a charge the government has emphatically denied. The group was placed on the U.S. list of foreign terror organizations in November.
Late-breaking updates: According to press reports, Jundullah has indeed taken credit for the attack.
President Barack Obama issued a statement on the attacks, according to multiple news sources. AFP reports:
WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama on Wednesday strongly condemned an “outrageous terrorist attack” by a suicide bomber at a Shiite religious procession in Chabahar, Iran, which killed at least 39 people.
“I strongly condemn the outrageous terrorist attack on a mosque in Chabahar, Iran,” Obama said in a written statement.
“The murder of innocent civilians in their place of worship during Ashura is a despicable offense, and those who carried it out must be held accountable. This is a disgraceful and cowardly act.”
Obama said such acts recognized no religious, political, or national boundaries, adding that the United States condemned terrorism wherever it occurs.
“The United States stands with the families and loved ones of those killed and injured, and with the Iranian people, in the face of this injustice,” he said.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran also condemned the attacks:
“This deplorable murder of innocent people cannot be justified, and violates the beliefs and values of all who seek peace and justice in Iran,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the spokesperson for the Campaign.
“We hope this grotesque act will not lead to reprisals harming other innocent citizens,” he added.
The Campaign said the attack was aimed at stoking ethnic tensions in Iran.
]]>Well, now the deputy commander of U.S. operations in Iraq is telling [...]]]>
Well, now the deputy commander of U.S. operations in Iraq is telling us that Iranian influence appears to be waning and not scaling up, contrary to what Iran hawks would have you believe.
Then today, the New York Times reported on the early stages of a deal to end the impasse on forming a new Iraqi government. And — surprise! — the supposed agent of Iranian influence in process, the paradoxically nativist cleric Muqtada al Sadr, has an “unclear…role” in the formation of a coalition to run government. The hawks’ earlier consternation was based on Sadr’s residence in the Iranian holy city of Qom. Soon-to-be prime minister again Nouri al Maliki’s men visited Sadr there to try to gain the cleric’s support for the government.
But, first, the U.S. brass in Iraq, via AFP (with my emphasis):
A top US military officer said Monday that Iran’s influence has waned in neighboring Iraq, where prolonged negotiations have struggled to decide on a new government.
“Probably in the last couple months, in this period of government formation, I think that we think that the Iranian influence has diminished somewhat,” said Lieutenant General Robert Cone, the deputy commander of US operations in Iraq.
Cone gave a nuanced take on the role of Iran, which is a sworn foe of the United States but also strongly opposed Saddam Hussein’s regime.
“We see all sorts of Iranian influence — some of it positive, in fact,” Cone told reporters in Washington by video-link.
“We believe some of it (is) negative, although it’s very difficult to attribute that to the Iranian government,” he said, explaining that weapons heading across the border could come from non-government players.
So that’s that, for now at least, as it seems to always be in Iraq.
Then there’s the coalition wrangling. Remember there was much concern among Iran hawks that Sadr, a Shia anti-American firebrand who was forced into exile during the late stages of the civil war, became a person of interest when it appeared he might be playing kingmaker for the coalition. A bloc with his blessing was likely to be even more staunchly sectarian than his fellow Shia Maliki would be on his own.
But now the Times reports that, far from a clear kingmaker, Sadr’s role is “unclear”:
Also unclear is the role for the bloc led by the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whose surprise support for Mr. Maliki all but ensured the prime minister a second term. The broader alliance among parties and sects proposed by the United States was intended to minimize the influence of the Sadrists.
For the moment, it seems the new government will have the support of other sectarian and ethnic groups. The Kurds will retain their seat as president (which they were set to reluctantly do anyway, even with Sadr in the mix). And it appears that even the leader of Iraq’s most prominent Sunni bloc, Ayad Allawi, will have a place in government.
The Times again:
The deal late on Wednesday ensured, for now at least, the participation of Sunni Arabs, who supported the bloc led by Mr. Maliki’s chief rival, Ayad Allawi, which narrowly won the most seats in elections in March. The deal was struck when Mr. Allawi’s group relented and agreed to join the new government, said Jaber al-Jaberi, one of Mr. Allawi’s chief allies, despite months of adamantly insisting it would never do so.
In exchange, Mr. Allawi’s bloc, called Iraqiya, was given the position of speaker of the Parliament as well as leadership of a newly created committee overseeing national security, officials from three factions said. The creation of the committee was a compromise pushed by the Obama administration to ensure the participation of Sunnis, Iraq’s former rulers, who have been underrepresented in the Iraqi government since the American invasion.
So if the Iranians are, as hawks allege, trying to make a power play in Iraq using Sadr to ensure across-the-board Shia dominance, they seem to be doing an exceedingly poor job of it.
And that’s that, for now at least, as it always seems to be in Iraq.
]]>- The Washington Post: Senior Council on Foreign Relations fellow and former George W. Bush policy adviser Michael Gerson writes that after the midterm election, Obama may choose to focus his efforts on foreign policy. He warns that Obama will make little headway in bringing peace in the Middle East because “Palestinian leaders are divided – unable to deliver on the agreements they are too weak to make in the first place. Israelis feel relatively safe behind security walls, uninclined toward risky compromise and concerned mainly about Iran,” echoing the reverse linkage argument frequently employed by hawks in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Gerson concludes that threat of military force against Iran is unlikely because, “When a president threatens force, he also loses control. And Barack Obama seems to be a man who values control.” As for the Tea Party movement, Gerson says it represents a “Jacksonian ascendancy” on Capitol Hill and “will urge more forceful policies against Cuba, Iran and Venezuela – along with Russia and China.”
- Time: Tony Karon discusses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pressure onVice President Joe Biden to get tough with Iran. “The only way to ensure that Iran will not go nuclear is to create a credible threat of military action against it if it doesn’t cease its race for a nuclear weapon,” Netanyahu reportedly told Biden. Karon writes that the Obama administration would have neither a legal basis nor international support in initiating a war with Iran. But the real challenge for the Obama administration, says Karon, may lie in the charges voiced by Republicans that Obama is “soft on Tehran” whenever any attempt at engagement with Iran is pursued. “That will certainly suit the Israeli leadership, who not only want to see a more confrontational U.S. position on Iran, but who also came into office insisting that Iran’s nuclear program, rather than peace with the Palestinians, should be Washington’s priority in the Middle East.”
- The Wall Street Journal: Walid Phares of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies opines on the imminent judgement of the tribunal investigating the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minsiter Rafik Hariri. “Thanks largely to bountiful Iranian aid, Hezbollah is winning its war against international justice,” writes Phares. He expects many Hezbollah members will be charged, but not arrested. He views Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent trip to Lebanon as an indication that “Iran, and not only its minions, would act in the event of an adverse ruling.” Phares concludes by imploring the UN, which helped set up the tribunal, to adhere to the UN charter which permits the use of force to ensure such rulings are enforced.He concedes this is unlikely, since it requires consent of the Lebanese government.
- AFP: The newswire reports on the comments of the deputy commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, who said that “Iranian influence has diminished somewhat.” Via a video conference, Cone told reporters in Washington, “We see all sorts of Iranian influence — some of it positive, in fact.” He added that some of the negative influence is “very difficult to attribute that to the Iranian government” — a reference to the fact that the alleged Iranian weapons entering Iraq may come from non-state actors.
- AFP: Michael Comte reports on Sen. Lindsay Graham’s (R-SC) recent comments on China and Iran. The remarks included a call for “bold” action to deal with Iran and a statement which appeared to endorse military action against Iran’s nuclear program. “[If President Barack Obama] decides to be tough with Iran beyond sanctions, I think he is going to feel a lot of Republican support for the idea that we cannot let Iran develop a nuclear weapon,” he told the Halifax International Security Forum. “Containment is off the table,” Graham added. If the United States were to pursue a military option against Iran, Graham emphasized that it would be a war, “not to just neutralize their nuclear program, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard, in other words neuter that regime.” Graham also warned that a “period of confrontation” with China over its “cheating” currency manipulation was drawing closer.
- The National Interest: George Washington University professor Hossein Askari argues that a nuclear enrichment agreement with Iran would only serve to lift some sanctions. Meanwhile, Tehran could continue secretly pursuing their nuclear program and “meddling in the region to pressure the United States.” Askari suggests negotiations and a fuel swap agreement are simply stalling tactics coming from a regime that views America as “their existential threat.” “The atomic issue is not America’s central problem with Iran, the regime is the problem, a fact that America must painfully acknowledge and so reorient its strategic interests,” says Askari. He concludes that the United States should support the opposition and reform movements within Iran, while expanding sanctions and freezing foreign bank accounts of Iranian citizens in excess of “say $1 million or $5 million.”
- National Review: National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger laments that his warnings about the imminence of an Iran bomb have gone unnoted in the public discourse. Last year he interviewed former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who opined that Iran would have a bomb by 2015. Believing he had a scoop, Nordlinger ”put it here in the Corner. I put it in my web column. I put it in a piece for National Review (at the tippy-top). I put it everywhere but in concert and opera reviews.” Nordlinger writes, “And . . . nothing. No one commented, no one noticed — no one said, ‘Holy-moly!’” Casting himself as a prophet ignored, Nordlinger concludes: “Oh, well, it could be that the Iranian A-bomb is simply a foregone conclusion, or a topic that bores people. I fear it will not be so boring, when the mullahs go nuclear.”
- Jerusalem Post: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met in New Orleans this weekend during the Jewish Federations of North America’s general assembly . Netanyahu reportedly told Biden, “The only way to ensure that Iran is not armed with nuclear weapons is to create a credible threat of military action against it, unless it stops its race to obtain nuclear weapons.” Netanyahu said paradoxically that a military threat was the only way to avoid war, and that he feared Western governments were falling into Tehran’s hands: “Iran is attempting to mislead the West and there are worrying signs that the international community is captivated by this mirage.”