Iran's Hidden Revolution - Danielle Pletka and Ali Alfoneh
Just after Iran's rigged elections last week, it looked as if a new revolution was in the offing. Five days later, the uprising is little more than a symbolic protest, crushed by the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The real revolution is that the guard has effected a silent coup d'etat. Iran has evolved from a theocratic state to a military dictatorship. Fourteen of the 21 cabinet ministers appointed by former Revolutionary Guard officer Ahmadinejad are former members of the guard or its associated paramilitary, the Basij. Provincial governors, press commissars, film directors, intelligence officers and business leaders are increasingly former members of the guard. Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Ali Alfoneh is a visiting fellow at the institute. (New York Times)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, June 17, 2009]

North Korea, Iran Joined on Missile Work; Iranian Missile Threat on U.S. Seen by 2015 - Jim Wolf
Iran and North Korea are working together to develop ballistic missiles and have made significant progress, Lt.-Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, the head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said Thursday. They are sharing know-how on avionics, propulsion and materials. The U.S. Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center said in a new report: "Iran has ambitious ballistic missile and space launch development programs and, with sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States by 2015." (Reuters)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, June 12, 2009]

North Korea-Iran Cooperation on Nuclear Weapons - Bret Stephens (Wall Street Journal)

• Iran's military and R&D links to North Korea go back more than 20 years, when Iran purchased 100 Scud-B missiles for use in the Iran-Iraq war. Since then, Iranians have reportedly been present at a succession of North Korean missile tests. North Korea also seems to have off-shored its missile testing to Iran after it declared a "moratorium" on its own tests in the late 1990s.

• In a 2008 paper published by the Korea Economic Institute, Dr. Christina Lin of Jane's Information Group noted that "Increased visits to Iran by DPRK [North Korea] nuclear specialists in 2003 reportedly led to a DPRK-Iran agreement for the DPRK to either initiate or accelerate work with Iranians to develop nuclear warheads that could be fitted on the DPRK No-dong missiles that the DPRK and Iran were jointly developing. Thus, despite the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate stating that Iran in 2003 had halted weaponization of its nuclear program, this was the time that Iran outsourced to the DPRK for proxy development of nuclear warheads."

• According to a 2003 report in the Los Angeles Times, "So many North Koreans are working on nuclear and missile projects in Iran that a resort on the Caspian coast is set aside for their exclusive use."

• North Korea's second bomb test last week might also have been Iran's first. If so, the only thing between Iran and a bomb is a long-range cargo plane.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, June 2, 2009]

Poll: Americans See Threat from Iran (McLaughlin and Associates)
    71% of American voters say the U.S. will not be safe with a nuclear Iran and 79% say it is likely that Iran will provide nuclear weapons to terrorists to attack an American city, according to a poll conducted on May 8-9.
    80% say it is likely that Iran will launch a missile attack on Israel, 77% say it is likely that Iran will use the threat of nuclear attack to provide a shield for Hizbullah and Hamas terrorists to attack Israel, and 82% say the U.S. should be concerned about the security of Israel.
    57% say Israel would be justified in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities given that Iran has publicly threatened to annihilate Israel.
    60% say that the Palestinians would continue their campaign of terror to destroy Israel even if they were given their own state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Iran to Mass Produce Long-Range Missiles - Yaakov Katz
Iran is in the midst of a multi-year plan to produce 500 missile launchers and over 1,000 missiles with a range of 2,500 km. by 2015. Tehran is believed to currently have an arsenal of 100-200 long-range Shihab missiles that have a range of up to 2,000 kilometers and carry up to one-ton warheads. "The Iranians are making great efforts to obtain a significant number of missiles," said Tal Inbar, head of the Space Research Center at the Fisher Brothers Institute in Herzliya. "They already talk about how one of the ways they will overcome the missile defense systems is by firing salvos of missiles."  (Jerusalem Post)

Diplomacy Without Sincerity - Michael Rubin
On Apr. 9, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency, announced that the Islamic Republic had installed 7,000 centrifuges in its Natanz uranium enrichment facility. The announcement came one day after the U.S. State Department announced it would engage Iran directly in multilateral nuclear talks.
    On June 14, 2008, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's spokesman, debated advisers to current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the University of Gila in northern Iran. Ramezanzadeh criticized Ahmadinejad for his defiant rhetoric, and counseled him to accept the Khatami approach: "We should prove to the entire world that we want power plants for electricity. Afterwards, we can proceed with other activities." The purpose of dialogue, he argued, was not to compromise, but to build confidence and avoid sanctions.
    "We had an overt policy, which was one of negotiation and confidence building, and a covert policy, which was continuation of the activities," he said. The strategy was successful. While today U.S. and European officials laud Khatami as a peacemaker, it was on his watch that Iran built and operated covertly its Natanz nuclear enrichment plant and, at least until 2003, a nuclear weapons program as well. The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. (Wall Street Journal)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, April 13, 2009]

Israel: Iran Using Nuclear Talks to Buy Time for Bomb
Iran is trying to use the talks with Western powers on its nuclear ambitions to buy time to produce an atomic bomb, Israel's military intelligence chief said on Sunday. "Iran has crossed the technological threshold. Reaching a military-grade nuclear capability is a question of synchronizing its strategy with the production of a nuclear bomb," Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told cabinet ministers. "Iran continues to stockpile hundreds of kilograms of low-level enriched uranium and hopes to use the dialogue with the West to buy the time it requires in order to move towards an ability to manufacture a nuclear bomb," a senior official quoted Yadlin as saying. (AFP)
    See also Military Intelligence: Iran Capable of Creating Nuclear Bomb - Roni Sofer
According to figures released by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has enriched 1,010 kilograms of low quality uranium. The amount of low quality enriched uranium needed for the creation of one nuclear bomb is 1,500 kilograms. (Ynet News)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, March 9, 2009]

U.S. Military Chief: Iran Has Enough Material to Make a Nuclear Weapon
Iran likely has enough material to make a nuclear weapon, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen told CNN on Sunday. "We think they do, quite frankly," Mullen said. "Iran having a nuclear weapon ... "

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, March 2, 2009]

Iran Crisis Arriving Faster than We Think - Editorial (Wall Street Journal)
    Iran now possesses 5,600 centrifuges in which it can enrich uranium - a 34-fold increase from 2006 - and plans to add 45,000 more over five years. That will give Tehran an ability to make atomic bombs on an industrial scale.
    In addition, Iran's new Russian-built reactor at Bushehr will eventually produce large quantities of spent fuel that can covertly be processed into weapons-usable plutonium.
    Furthermore, most proliferation experts agree that Iran's heavy water reactor in Arak, scheduled for completion in 2011, can have no purpose other than to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, March 3, 2009]

New Iranian UAV Capability Is Troublesome - Editorial
Iran has developed a new generation of unmanned aerial vehicles with a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), Iranian Deputy Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi announced this week. The new UAV could soar over every U.S. military installation, diplomatic mission or country of interest in the Middle East. Drones are very attractive to smaller states because they are inexpensive, stealthy and pose fewer risks than conventional aircraft. In 2007 Iran claimed to have begun producing "suicide drones" invisible to radar and usable as guided missiles to attack U.S. ships. Should Iran arm its drones with missiles having chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear warheads, any of which are or soon will be within Iranian capabilities, the UAVs will be strategic, offensive weapon systems. (Washington Times)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, February 20, 2009]

Iran's Game-Changing Long-Range Missile - Uzi Rubin
On Nov. 12, Iran launched a new type of long-range ballistic missile, the Sajil. Its appearance is living testimony to the failure of the world community to curb the trade in missile technology, not to speak of curbing the malicious ambitions of Iran's mullahs. This is a brand-new missile, an original design more advanced than anything available to the North Koreans, and it signifies Iran's graduation into world-level missilery. Its range is longer than the Shahab-3 - 2,400 kilometers - which makes the new missile capable of reaching - besides every capital city of the Middle East - Moscow, Warsaw, and the outskirts of Vienna and St. Petersburg.
    The appearance of the Sajil highlights Iran's single-minded pursuit of ballistic missile capability in every conceivable technology. This is the second multistage Iranian rocket program to surface, following the two-stage Safir space launcher that first flew last August. This diversity and tempo of development is almost unparalleled. All this for conventional warheads?
    It also highlights the limits of nonproliferation since its large-diameter solid propulsion system requires a host of special technologies and machines whose export is strictly controlled by the Missile Technology Control Regime. It is inconceivable that Iran developed such technologies on its own. In spite of all the export controls, someone sold them to Iran. It is time to move from nonproliferation to counterproliferation, including missile defense. The writer oversaw the development of Israel's Arrow anti-missile defense system. (Defense News)

How to Put the Squeeze on Iran - Orde F. Kittrie
If Barack Obama is to persuade Iran to negotiate away its illegal nuclear weapons program, he will first need to generate more leverage. Tehran has an economic Achilles' heel - its extraordinarily heavy dependence on imported gasoline. Iran imports some 40% of the gasoline it needs for internal consumption.
    In recent months, Iran has purchased nearly all of this gasoline from just five companies: the Swiss firm Vitol; the Swiss/Dutch firm Trafigura; the French firm Total; British Petroleum; and the Indian company Reliance Industries. If these companies stopped supplying Iran, the Iranians could replace only some of what they needed from other suppliers - and at a significantly higher price. Neither Russia nor China could serve as alternative suppliers since both are themselves heavily dependent on gasoline imports. The writer, a professor of law at Arizona State University, worked for 11 years at the State Department, including as a specialist on nuclear nonproliferation and sanctions. (Wall Street Journal)

Berlin Loves Iran - Editorial
It's been a while since German military officers attended rallies that feature threats to Jews. Last month Berlin's defense attache in Tehran resumed that tradition at Iran's annual military parade. This episode illustrates the fundamental problem with Germany's attitude toward Iran: the disconnect between what Berlin says is its official policy goal - stopping the mullahs' quest for nuclear arms - and what Berlin actually does.
    Germany remains Iran's key Western trading partner. In the first seven months of this year, Germany's Federal Office of Economics and Export Control approved 1,926 business deals with Iran - an increase of 63% over last year. During that same period, German exports to Iran rose 14%. For the record, French exports went up 21% during the first six months of the year, while Britain's exports to Tehran fell 20%. (Wall Street Journal Europe)

Iran Is a Bigger Threat than Wall Street - Greg Sheridan (The Australian)

• At some stage during the next presidency, Iran will blow up into a full-scale crisis that will dominate global politics and that may be more important than the Wall Street financial crisis, the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan's internal crisis, and the relentless military build-up of China.

• A bipartisan report commissioned by two former U.S. senators and written primarily by Middle East expert Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute begins: "A nuclear weapons capable Islamic Republic of Iran is strategically untenable."

• "A nuclear ready or nuclear-armed Islamic Republic ruled by the clerical regime could threaten the Persian Gulf region and its vast energy resources, spark nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East, inject additional volatility into global energy markets, embolden extremists in the region and destabilize states such as Saudi Arabia and others in the region, provide nuclear technology to other radical regimes and terrorists (although Iran might hesitate to share traceable nuclear technology), and seek to make good on its threats to eradicate Israel."

• "The threat posed by the Islamic Republic is not only direct Iranian action but also aggression committed by proxy. Iran remains the world's most active state sponsor of terrorism, proving its reach from Buenos Aires to Baghdad."

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, September 29, 2008]

Hanged for Being a Christian in Iran - Alasdair Palmer
A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favor of an "Islamic Penal Code" which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The vote in favor of the new law was 196 to 7. Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.
    Hossein Soodmand was the last man to be executed in Iran for apostasy, the "crime" of abandoning one's religion. He had converted from Islam to Christianity in 1960, when he was 13 years old. Thirty years later, he was hanged by the Iranian authorities for that decision. His son, Ramtin, also a Christian, was arrested on August 21. It is feared he may become one of the first to be killed under Iran's new law. (Telegraph-UK)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, October 15, 2008]

Building a Security Framework for a Nuclear Iran - David Kay
Given what we know and what we can best-guess, it looks as if Iran is 80 percent of the way to a functioning nuclear weapon. We know, basically, that Tehran has a handle on the fissionable material. Iran imported significant amounts of raw uranium from China in 1991. It has also attempted to produce weapons-grade material, conducting secret enrichment efforts and acquiring designs, materials and samples of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment from the A.Q. Khan network. Plus, over the past 18 years, the Iranians have developed and tested state-of-the-art centrifuges and enrichment techniques. If Iran's 6,000 forthcoming new-design centrifuges were working for a year, the program could produce about five weapons. My best guess is that they are about two to four years away from accomplishing this. Obtaining that last 20 percent of the elements needed to make a nuclear weapon would take perhaps one to two years.  (Washington Post)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, September 8, 2008]

Listening to Iran - Terry Milewski (CBC News-Canada)

Menashe Amir is the voice of Israel in Iran. On Israel's state-run radio, he's been broadcasting daily to Iran, in Farsi, for 48 years. Amir said the West has failed to understand the Iranian threat. He believes the regime is opposed by most Iranians but is consumed by an apocalyptic vision: the triumph of Shia Islam over the world. Western governments, he says, don't see that, for the Iranian mullahs, the destruction of the Jewish state is just a step along the way. "On the same day, in the same speech that Ahmadinejad called for wiping off Israel from the map, he added that the destruction of Israel is the first step of our final confrontation with Western civilization."

Amir says the regime dreams of a new caliphate - an Islamic empire spanning the globe. "They have the money, the missiles, they are seeking to have the nuclear bomb and the life of humankind is not important for them. I want to mention what Rahim Safavy, who was the chief commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran, said a few days ago: 'We shall win and you, the Westerners, shall lose because we gave 200,000 victims, martyrs, in eight years of war with Iraq and we have 300,000 disabled and injured in this war - and we don't care about it. But you, the Westerners, are afraid to give 4,000 or 5,000 victims and casualties, so the final victory will be ours.'"

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, August 29, 2008]

London's Terror Bank - Editorial (Wall Street Journal)

Just this month, the Brits joined with U.S. and French officials in sending a letter to the UN Security Council warning against "Iran's continued attempts to conduct prohibited proliferation-related activity and terrorist financing." Given that Bank Saderat PLC has been precisely the mechanism to get money to terrorists, it's hard to understand why the rogue financial institution still enjoys a home in London.

British action could be particularly beneficial now, as the policy of isolating Iran from the international banking system appears to be putting genuine stress on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government. Almost all of the world's commercial banks have ceased doing business with Iran, making even routine trade a logistical challenge. It's not a coincidence that Iran's economy has been struggling even amid an oil boom, or that internal dissent against the Iranian government is increasing.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, August 21, 2008]

The Russian-Georgian War: Implications for the Middle East - Ariel Cohen (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)

U.S. intelligence-gathering and analysis on the Russian threat to Georgia failed. So did U.S. military assistance to Georgia, worth around $2 billion over the last 15 years. This is something to remember when looking at recent American intelligence assessments of the Iranian nuclear threat or the unsuccessful training of Palestinian Authority security forces against Hamas.

The writer is Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Security at The Heritage Foundation.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, August 15, 2008]

Russia and China Subverting Iran Sanctions - Editorial (Washington Times)

Russia appears determined to expand its oil and gas investments in Iran. Between 2000 and 2007, the Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom invested $4 billion in Iran. In February, Gazprom announced it would expand its involvement in developing Iran's South Pars natural-gas field in the Persian Gulf and would aid Tehran's oil-exploration efforts. Gazprom last month signed a multibillion-dollar agreement with the Iranian National Oil Co. to help Iran develop its oil and gas fields.

The Iranian government has also announced a $100 billion agreement with the Chinese oil giant Sinopec, in which the firm agreed to purchase Iranian natural gas and help develop one of Iran's largest oil fields.

The Hollow Regime: Bragging in Tehran - Michael Ledeen (National Review)

• The Iranian regime has two fundamental instruments of power, whether at home or abroad: terror and deception. Both are dramatically on display.

• This past Sunday, 30 people were executed for a variety of alleged crimes, and a number of whom lost their lives because they dared to criticize the regime. This wave of executions in the world's second-most active killer of its own citizens (China tops the list) coincides with the anniversary of the resumption of public hangings last August, which was viewed as "sending a message" to would-be critics and anyone in the West who might be tempted to support Iranian dissidents. This weekend's mass executions mark a new, grisly watershed in the mullahs' ongoing terror war against their own people.

When Talking Can Kill - Caroline Glick
The West's latest offer to appease Tehran constituted a major achievement for the Iranians. It promised civilian nuclear power plants, economic assistance, new airplanes, agricultural assistance, hi-tech transfers and a freeze on the expansion of economic sanctions against the nuclear-weapons-seeking mullocracy. In exchange, the Iranians weren't even required to end their uranium enrichment activities. All they needed to do was promise not to expand their current enrichment activities.
    As David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, explained to Newsweek, at their current, known level of uranium enrichment the Iranians are producing 1.2 kg. of enriched uranium a day. At this enrichment level, they will be able to produce a nuclear bomb by next year. So the international community's willingness to accept continued Iranian uranium enrichment at current levels is a clear signal of the international community's willingness to accept a nuclear-armed Iran. (Jerusalem Post)

Berlin - Iran - Editorial
Berlin's refusal to use its considerable economic leverage over Tehran puts it at odds not only with Washington but increasingly with its European partners in London and Paris. In February, Germany's Export Control Office gave the green light for a $157 million gas deal with Iran. SPG Steiner-Prematechnik-Gastec will build three plants that turn gas to liquid fuels. German imports from Iran rose 28% last year. And German exports to Iran are up 13.6% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, Germany is increasingly siding with China and Russia to give diplomacy yet another chance even as Iran's regime shows no willingness to respond to the carrots. (Wall Street Journal-Europe)

IAEA "Alarmed" by Iran's Nuclear Weapons Work
Inspectors from the UN atomic watchdog are "alarmed" that Iran has in its possession a document describing the process for making what could be the core of a nuclear weapon, a Western diplomat said Thursday. The 15-page document describes the process of machining uranium metal into two hemispheres of the kind used in nuclear warheads.
    At a closed-door meeting with diplomats, the International Atomic Energy Agency's chief for inspections, Olli Heinonen, revealed that the agency had gathered intelligence from around ten countries suggesting Iran was engaged in weaponization studies in the past. "The term he used for this document was 'alarming.' He essentially said there was no reason why a country would need to possess such a document unless they wanted to produce uranium hemispheres for a nuclear weapon," the diplomat said. (AFP)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, May 30, 2008]

Iran Stonewalling UN Nuclear Inspectors - Editorial
Last August, the International Atomic Energy Agency struck a deal with Iran on a "work plan" for clearing up outstanding questions about its nuclear program within three months. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, who launched the initiative as an end run around the Western campaign to stop Tehran's ongoing uranium enrichment, claimed that it would be a "litmus test." "If Iran were to prove that it was using this period for delaying tactics and it was not really acting in good faith, then obviously nobody - nobody - will come to its support when people call for more sanctions or for punitive measures," he said. On Monday, six months after the deadline, the IAEA issued a report saying, in essence, that Iran had not acted in good faith and was engaging in delaying tactics. (Washington Post)
[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, May 29, 2008]

The Iranian-Israeli War - Yossi Klein Halevi
Regardless of the affiliation of the actual perpetrator of the massacre of eight students in a yeshiva library in Jerusalem last week, the ultimate responsibility for this attack, as for almost all the terror attacks on Israel in recent years, lies with Iran. The Palestinian struggle is no longer about creating an independent state. It is about being a front-line participant in the Iranian-led jihad to destroy Israel, evolving from a nationalist to a religious war. A real solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict can only be reached by dealing with its primary instigator: Iran.
    After Yasser Arafat launched a war against Israel in September 2000, he initiated an alliance with Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Until then, Iran's only client within the Palestinian national movement had been the Islamic Jihad, the smallest of the Palestinian terrorist factions. According to a former chief of Israeli military intelligence, Arafat promised the Iranians that he would turn Gaza into a second southern Lebanon, and Iran began providing weapons and funds to Arafat's Fatah. In January 2002, Israel intercepted the Karine A, a ship carrying Iranian-supplied Katyusha rockets and mortars and C-4 explosives for use in suicide bombings.
    Three years ago, Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshal orchestrated a formal alliance and today Hamas is an integral part of the Iranian war against Israel. Iran has trained hundreds of Hamas operatives - and continues to fund individual members of Fatah's Al Aqsa Brigades. The writer is a senior fellow at the Adelson Center for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. (New Republic)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, March 12, 2008]

U.S. Warns Europe of Iran Missiles - Kim Murphy
Lt. Gen. Henry Obering III, director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency warned Thursday that Iran was within two or three years of producing a missile that could reach most European capitals. "They're already flying missiles that exceed what they would need in a fight with Israel. Why? Why do they continue this progression in terms of range of missiles? It's something we need to think about,"  "Our short-range defenses could protect Rome and Athens," Obering said, but he warned that London, Paris and Brussels would remain vulnerable "against an Iranian [intermediate-range missile] threat."
    Many in Europe have expressed doubts that Iran would target European cities. But Obering said it was possible to imagine as little as seven years from now a nuclear-armed Iran shutting off oil shipments in the Persian Gulf, or al-Qaeda militants seizing freighters off Europe and arming them with nuclear-tipped Scud missiles "to punish the West for invasion of Muslim holy lands."  (Los Angeles Times)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, February 29, 2008]

Mullahs in Space - Peter Brookes
On Feb. 5, Iranian President Ahmadinejad ordered the launch of a ballistic missile described as a "space launch vehicle" from a new space center in northern Iran. Iran claims it set the stage for a future launch of the first Iranian-built satellite next spring. A space program is critical to developing ICBM capacity. Theoretically, if you can launch a ballistic missile that can place a satellite into earth orbit, you have the scientific wherewithal to hit a target anywhere on Earth with a warhead, including a nuke. A two-stage missile from Iran could reach our East Coast; three-stages, the whole United States. The writer, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow, is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. (New York Post)

Iran Could Have Enough Uranium for a Bomb by Year's End - Markus Becker
New simulations carried out by European Union experts come to an alarming conclusion: Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium to build an atomic bomb by the end of this year. When the U.S. released a new National Intelligence Estimate last year, it seemed as though the danger of a mullah-bomb had passed. The report claimed that Tehran mothballed its nuclear weapons program in autumn 2003.
    As part of a project to improve control of nuclear materials, the European Commission Joint Research Center (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, set up a detailed simulation of the centrifuges currently used by Iran in the Natanz nuclear facility to enrich uranium. The results look nothing like those reached by the U.S. intelligence community. For one scenario, the JRC scientists assumed the centrifuges in Natanz were operating at 100% efficiency. Were that the case, Iran could already have the 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium necessary for an atomic device by the end of this year. Another scenario assumed a much lower efficiency - just 25%. But even then, Iran would have produced enough uranium by the end of 2010. (Der Spiegel-Germany)
[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, February 22, 2008]

Iran Developing Nuclear Warheads, Exile Group Claims
Mohammad Mohaddessin, a representative of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, claimed Wednesday in Brussels that Tehran had established a command and control center to work on a nuclear bomb and that it was also setting up a center to produce warheads. He said Iran had closed down one center only to open another later with the same purpose, and called the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate "not accurate." He said he had provided the latest information to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday and urged them to investigate more sites in Iran and interview more scientists. Mohaddessin said the information came from sources within Iran, including from among staff at covert nuclear plants. (AP/International Herald Tribune)
    The new command and control center, coded-named Lavizan-2, was established at Mojdeh on the outskirts of Tehran last April, near the site of a previous facility razed after its exposure. Production of nuclear warheads is at a complex code-named B1-Nori-8500 at Khojir, about 20 km. further southeast. Mohaddessin said the Khojir site was under the charge of missile expert Mehdi Naghiyan Fesharaki, who was transferred there two years ago. "This means the regime is getting to the point of connecting nuclear weapons to missiles," he said.
    "The Iranian regime is undoubtedly developing the nuclear bomb. None of the essential work has been halted....All three parts have been speeded up," he said, referring to uranium enrichment, weaponization, and missile development. "Time is running out to stop the regime acquiring a nuclear bomb. If we do not act today, tomorrow might be too late." (Reuters)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, February 21, 2008]

Amir Oren, Ha'aretz, Dec 2007: "A hearty Persian laugh was heard in Tehran after looking at U.S. intelligence's website with the unclassified version of "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities." The document enables the ayatollahs' nuclear and operations officials and the heads of the Revolutionary Guards to conclude that the Americans have no understanding of what is really happening in Iran's nuclear program. They have no solid information, they have no high-level agents and they have nothing more than a mix of guesswork and chatter. The dissemblance and concealment have succeeded."

Feb 2008: In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Admiral Michael McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence attempts to reverse the damage done by the NIE.

June 2007: Iran moves significantly closer towards acquiring the essential material for a nuclear bomb

Former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon: Iran "would have nuclear technology within a year and a half, and will have the bomb within 3-5 years."

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