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Israel's Peres Warns Attack on Iran Getting 'Closer'
Israeli President Shimon Peres warned on Sunday that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely, days before a report by the UN's nuclear watchdog on Iran's nuclear programme is due.
Israeli President Shimon Peres warned on Sunday that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely, days before a report by the UN's nuclear watchdog on Iran's nuclear programme is due. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias) "The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option," Peres told the Israel Hayom daily.
"We must stay calm and resist pressure so that we can consider every alternative," he added.
"I don't think that any decision has already been made, but there is an impression that Iran is getting closer to nuclear weapons."
His comments came after he warned in an interview aired by Israel's privately-owned Channel Two television on Saturday that an attack on Iran was becoming "more and more likely."
"The intelligence services of the different countries that are keeping an eye on (Iran) are worried and putting pressure on their leaders to warn that Iran is ready to obtain the nuclear weapon," he said.
In France meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe warned that an attack on Iran would be disastrous.
"We have imposed sanctions that continue to expand, we can toughen them to put pressure on Iran," Juppe told Europe 1 radio.
"We will continue on this path because a military intervention could create a situation that completely destabilises the region," he said.
"Everything must be done to avoid the irreversible."
In recent days, speculation in Israel has grown about the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, with Haaretz newspaper reporting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak were seeking cabinet support for an attack.
And the military last week carried out what Israeli media called a "ballistic missile" test, as well as a large-scale civil defence drill simulating the response to conventional and non-conventional missile attacks.
Officials said both events were long-planned, but they drove talk here about whether Israel is ramping up plans for an attack.
On Sunday, Haaretz reported that US officials had failed to secure a commitment from Israel that it would coordinate any attack plans with Washington.
Still, media reports suggested no final decision has been taken and that a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog on November 8 or 9 would have a "decisive effect" on decision-making.
Previous IAEA assessments have centred on Iran's efforts to produce fissile material -- uranium and plutonium -- that can be used for power generation and other peaceful uses, but also for the core of a nuclear warhead.
However the new update, which diplomats say will be circulated among envoys on Tuesday or Wednesday, will focus on Iran's alleged efforts to put the fissile material in a warhead and develop missiles to carry them to a target.
On Monday, Barak denied reports that he and Netanyahu had already decided to attack Iran over the opposition of military and intelligence chiefs.
But he said "situations could arise in the Middle East under which Israel must defend its vital interests independently, without having to rely on regional or other forces."
Haaretz said a majority of the 15 members of Israel's security cabinet were still against an attack on Iran, and a poll published by the newspaper found Israeli public opinion divided, with 41 percent in favour, 39 percent opposed and 20 percent undecided.
Israel has consistently warned all options remain on the table when it comes to Iran's nuclear programme, which the Jewish state and Western governments fear masks a drive for nuclear weapons.
Iran denies any such ambition and insists its nuclear programme is for power generation and medical purposes only.
In comments published on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi accused the IAEA of "political" behaviour and said its report would be "baseless."
"I believe that these documents lack authenticity. But if they insist, they should go ahead and publish. Better to face danger once than be always in danger," several Iranian dailies quoted Salehi as saying.
"We have said repeatedly that their documents are baseless. For example one can counterfeit money, but it remains counterfeit. These documents are like that," Salehi said.
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65 Comments so far
Show AllThreatening to attack another country with ones military forces is a violation of the UN charter.
Pointing this out when It Israel making the threats is deemed "antisemitic" by the western media.
True. Iran ought to follow up on that, and report Israel/Peres to the UN formally to make the case clearer. A US veto in the UN Security Council on a vote to condemn Israel for the threats would be to reveal the real state of affairs even better. Futile for now, but not futile for the record. Humanity sooner or later always has to revert to reason and shared norms, as it's the only way to coexist without mutual harm and destruction detrimental to all.
And speaking of the UN, it seems somewhat ironic that its International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reporting is being used as an excuse for attacking a NNPT signatory state by a non-signatory state. Not to mention a state that totally ignores UN resolutions that it deems inconvenient for it own purposes.
You know how many wars have been fought while violating the UN charter. No one even complains about it any more. There isn't any court that judges a country for stuff like this.
The courts are also in the back pockets of the elitists running the globe.
Iran--gruesome as its dictatorship may be--does not possess a large stock-pile of nuclear weapons, is not ethnic cleansing, is not brutally occupying, is not committing piracy on the high seas, is not periodically attacking its neighbors and killing thousands of women, children and men. There is clearly a rogue state in the area, but is Iran that state?
Iran has been killing our troops in Iraq since the start (The IEDs were Iranian made)...not to mention helping Assad in his crackdown and not to mention arming Hezbollah.
Imagine that! One country is fighting the USan Empire back. And coincidentally, they wouldn't be 'killing your troops' if your troops were invading and occupying Iraq. Y'all believe in an eye for an eye so, there you are!
Then maybe the US troops should have kept their asses out of Iraq. The hypocrisy is jaw-dropping.
Snurdly, do you think Isolated Israel can beat Iran and whoever joins in a real war?
Iran has been killing our troops in Iraq since the start (The IEDs were Iranian made)...not to mention helping Assad in his crackdown and not to mention arming Hezbollah.
Does the U.S. ever support insurgents in other countries that further our interests? Do people die when we do that? Yes, when our troops are in combat, the enemy and its allies often shoot back.
You fail to mention that our attack and occupation in Iraq was illegal to start with. The US couldn't get UN approval and attacked Iraq anyways. Our invasion of Iraq klled 100's of thousands of Iraqis. As far as Hezbollah, if it weren't for them, Israel would be occupying southern Lebanon.
I reiterate....
First, the US has no justification to ever being in Iraq: the war is an illegal aggression, American and other troops are legitimate targets in Iraq as they are invaders and are not in any way on the "right" side of the issue. Not understanding this requires more than just ignorance. When you attack a country that did nothing whatsoever to you, you have no fucking right to blame anyone for the deaths of people but yourself.
Second, the reasons Iran got fucked up are, among others, a) the US initiated coup that cut off a path to democratization in 1953, and b) the US sponsored Iraq-Iran war that entrenched and solidified a fucked up regime (and of course the ongoing pressure on Iran that also helps stabilise the current regime). Actions have consequences. Fucked up actions have fucked up consequences. If you push someone down a slope, whining about why they are so low and how they can't catch up is not exactly something honest.
Hi kids! Ready for years of excruciating pain as you slowly die from lung cancer, bone cancer, prostate cancer, thyroid cancer etc... Well I sure hope so because the Iran War will create radioactive dust that will be falling on your home town soon---a nice little gift from the Peace Laureate to you and your loved ones. Enjoy!
I don't think these people give a damn about anyone.
"In God We Trust" was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956." i understand congress recently voted on whether to keep the motto. i wonder did they make a wee little tailoring aleration?
"In G_d We Trust"
Yeah, and has anyone ever wondered why the US is so enamored with circumcision too?
Yep. 2012 should be a banner year for political insanity and planetary suicide.
I hope the average person in Israel will be happy with living in conditions a cartoon parody cave-man would call primitive.
Doomsday wacko's are crazy and all, and 2012 was probably just an arbitrary date to stop recording celestial movements and such, but life is special in many weird ways. Coincidences of immense proportions happen all the time and you probably miss them if you're not lucky or keen to the information available.
To get to the point, 2012 could be the year where humanity sets off on a course for mass extinction. As cruel as the 1% may be, they are humans. Anything they do is representative of human beings as a whole and we all have a responsibility for allowing it to happen if not responsible for it happening directly. Those old, angry men that planned those killings? Our nation does it all the time and nobody is accountable because we allow it. We don't sanction it, we don't vote on it, and we're kept from hearing about it, but we also do nothing to stop it.
Crime, pollution and war could see to it that many are killed. Japan has been irradiated and they are turning the other reactors back on. That's enough for me to understand that our existence is indeed cursed with the sword of Damocles hovering above. We really can kill ourselves as a species and be blind to it.
"Mr. President, we must not allow a cave or mineshaft gap! "
"We'll meet again....
Don't know how, don't know when....."
Thanks for the ironic wit. Think I'll have a Valthorium-G martini and watch Strangelove again.
The nuclear lunacy never seems to die, it just changes flags and scenarios.
"There are those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. And at the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we'd been spending on defense in a single year. But the deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap."
If I was Iran I'd have planted a nuclear device both in Israel and the USA decades ago.
Why bother with ballistic missiles and their ABM defence systems, when when you could FEDEX stuff incrementally? But then I do tend to think horizontally rather than vertically. Hopefully it is all just Israel posturing for more handouts.
Everyone in the USA and Israel should be forced to watch Dr. Strangelove. Some might get it.
Shhhhh. The U.S. might find out and demand that you stop.
It's all a big lie to keep the US pentagon piggery going. Israel is always sucking pentagon tit so she is playing the game. Watch this all evaporate after the budget is decided by the super crooks committee. A whole bunch of conned US citizens will heave a sigh of relief that no war took place while Israel and the pentagon laugh all the way to the bank.
Meanwhile our social safety net continues to be trashed for the benefit of the 1%.
In overpopulated ecosystems with dwindling resources, authoritarianism and reactionary violence spikes.
It does not have to, but if a country spends quite that much on making it happen, well then it goes that way. but there is nothing inevitable about it. The answer is up to us, all of us.
The problem is not the dwindling of resources, but what they are used for and how the results are distributed. There is still plenty to go around but only the bankers and arms dealers gain from war.
It does not help anyone to sell fatalism. It has for ever only served the greedy.
More "Apocalypse Now!" saber-rattling.I guess Iran should just fold like a cheap suit and surrender in advance.Probably before the month is out, La Clinton will be hinting that even though Amerika don't have a dog in this hunt, it sure would be a nice holiday treat for the Free World if Ahmadinejad turned up dead by Christmas.
Iran shouldn't hold out too long or they might lose their credit rating. Any Ahmad wacking should take place close to Christmas so that all Evangelicals can celebrate the event in a timely manner and in an appropriately impactful setting. This proximity to Christmas is also necessary so as not to upset Consumers for Christ before they have completed their Christmas shopping. A spike in energy prices is very good for the energy sector but not so good for retail you see.
Count on it.
Now, with enough time to effect the American election, it is time for the U.S. to be brought to heel (or is it hell?).
"Israel's Peres Warns Attack on Iran Getting 'Closer'"
- Just sick of these Israeli hypocrites, denying rights to others which they claim for themselves. Israel has 200 - 400 nuclear weapons and is not a signatory to the NNPT, the opposite of the status of Iran.
Israel has no moral standing on the issue to criticize, much less to condemn, and far from any logical argument to attack Iran.
Israel's stark moral hypocrisy is in fact a graver danger to (the partial) peace in the world than any nuclear weapon.
Its still all about oil. Another war will be used to enforce more homeland security against occupy protestors. The US may pretend not to be told, but Israel and the US have their hands in each others pockets.
To take back Iran has been part of US military objectives since the Shah was ousted. To hold it has been a military objective since oil was discovered there. The current withdrawal from Iraq is to allow more US resources to be used to attack Iran. This will presumably ttry to break the strength of Iranian influence in Iraq, and give the US complete control over Middle East oil, which has been the objective of foreign policy for at least the last fifty years.
Having the rabid dog of Israel attack Iran, with US coming to take over when it starts to look at as if it might lose, as modelled by the Libya campaign, allows the US to say to the UN with false sincerity, that they could not do anything to stop it, and they had to defend US investments and a US allie. Very significantly, the US government has not said "If you attack Iran, you will be on your own, we will not help under any circumstances"
And why should the US even need to assist? One nuclear missile strike by Israel on Tehran, and the war will be over. Since Israel is insane and nuclear armed, who will dare convict them?
Good analysis. Luckily still only a part of the picture - the rest of the world is also here.
And with all those troops 'leaving' Iraq.... goodness gracious - we need something for them to do. Heaven forbid that the cash stream to KBR and other key defense contractors (and their oligarch shareholders) should be negatively impacted by insufficient violence directed at the rest of the world.
You're naive if you think a proposed war on Iran is about oil. Sure oil may turn out to be the spoils that will be divvied up afterewards. But this is a religious/political war. Israel wants to come out of the closet and prove it's really the first world power in the world today. They now decide who's boats can travel in international waters. They've got street cred. They're just itching to demonstrate their muscle.
Economically the US, Russia and the EU are a mess. Funny thing though Isreal hasn't been touched economically have they? What exactly is it Israel's GDP is based on? I hear they now manufacture and export drones.
We're hearing a daily drumbeat now with rumors of war on Iran. At one point, the IAEA was directed by leaders with some degree of independence and integrity. I don't know if that remains the case today. If the fix is in over at IAEA, which we'll know by midweek, then the drumbeat we're hearing should be regarded as part of a serious plan to light a fuse under the Middle East and see what blows up.
The content of the report is in the news and has been for sometime. Also the IAEA never was "on Iran's side" and never said they were in compliance with regulations, only that they did not think that any deviations from the regulations were serious.
The plutocrats, oligarchs, neo-fascists and their allies are planning far ahead. They do not for one moment intend to relinquish control.............
9/11 should be enough proof that they will do anything to achieve their goals. Meanwhile, Israel holds an essential blackmail card - an ace. That is, knowing the facts about 9/11 as an Inside Job..............
Have you educated yourself, pursued these details yet? Obviously, times a' wastin.'
It is exactly one year before the U.S. presidential election........
Israel is very clear that it will be wagging this dog - i.e., the future direction of U.S. policy. Got to admit it's a clever and likely effective strategy: dragging the Democrats into a doublebind - fail to support our ally Israel as the Middle East explodes or lose the next election?.......
Plus, bombing Iran would be a most excellent distraction from the rising of "freedom movements" such as the Arab Spring or OccupyWS, etc.
So what does Israel think, that Iran will sit there and take their "spanking" like a good little nation? If Israel chooses to commit an act of war, then I would think it should be prepared for something longer than the 7-day variety. 10 years of Iraq and apparently nothing has been learned.
Nothing like a war to take the focus off the debt. This way we won't have to change the pledge from "one nation under God" to "one nation under water"...
More accurately nothing like another war to sink us even deeper. That's exactly where Israel wants us.
Right, Mr. Snurdly, the Iranian dictators are definitely swine, esp re: supporting the Syrian zombie regime. Lets just remember who else freely sells/distributes weaponry world-wide, and to the most repressive regimes in the middle east.
Yes; and do you remember shortly after invading Iraq the U.S. Military left an explosives storage facility UNguarded and tons of high level explosives were stolen as a result? How stupid is that?
As to "our" troops in Iraq. What makes them "ours?" The fact that they come from our country? Are they on a mission for "us?" Most importantly, do "we" have any say at all about their mission, whatever it is, other than staying alive?
There are two reasons a nation develops a nuclear program - John Gofman phrased it perfectly, and called it a disease - a sickness:
"Power and Privilege"
Yet the history of the human being reveals a startling consistency - over time and space, and power and privilege are part of that consistency.
At first glance, some societies appear, and are, more egalitarian.
But a deeper analysis shows this to be largely a product of circumstance.
The great evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson has a new Theory - that we, humankind, may be a "eusocial" species - like the ants. That theory cuts two ways - producing hierarchy and specialization - but also cooperation.
While largely academic, this new theory has the advantage that it is truly grounded in science and genetics, and can thus be examined by all, and either confirmed or destroyed - or more likely, modified.
I find myself looking on all of this and relating to Don Juan Matua, the principal character in Castenada's "A Separate Reality."
The great majority of men, both the one and the ninety-nine percent - are indeed foolish, quite literally incapable of thinking for themselves. The Bell curve has its own reality.
Manysummits
=========
We know, we know. The former chief of Mossad was kind enough to warn us that the Nutayahoo cabal was planning to invade Iraq in November, 2012.
Well if Israel wants their Neighbors to push them into the sea this will do the trick.
The threat is a war to the finish.
Even if Iran is secretly workin on the bomb which is what the US and Israel did,
since Iran does not have the bomb, if they are attacked and it spreads Radioactive material why would they not get some small nukes off the black market and there are many ways of delivery..... What will Pakistan do with their bombs.
What would China and Russia do?
We know what Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran McCain and Palin would have done already, but not so sure about Obama and the US military is not ready for a real World War. Israel is Isolated more than ever now and is out of their freakin Minds.
All the countries around Israel would want to get this war over with and it will be to the Death, called the Israeli Samson Option.
J folk intel
Yeah right.
No one is going to push Israel into the sea over an Iran attack, especially not China or Russia. Neither one has ever spread their nuclear umbrella over Iran and won't at this stage. As for the Arab nations doing it? No chance, they won't go to bat for each other, let alone for Persians. Even if they did want to, none has a functioning military any more, and most critical, none has an airforce and without that, no one is going anywhere. You expect a horde of boys with knives and guns to do anything without a real military command structure?
Peace in the ME is going to come from negotiation only and the longer it takes to get there the harder it is going to be to achieve.