#Tehran's nuclear program

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The head of an Iranian secret service unit set up to target Mossad agents working in the Islamic Republic turned out to be an Israeli agent himself, according to former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Speaking to CNN Turk, Ahmadinejad claimed Monday that a further 20 agents in the Iranian intelligence team tasked with monitoring Israeli spying activities also turned against Tehran.

The alleged double agents provided Israel with sensitive information on the Iranian nuclear program, according to his comments in the interview, which were widely picked up by international media.

Ahmadinejad said the agents were behind some key Mossad successes in Iran, including the 2018 theft of nuclear program documents that were taken from Tehran to Israel and revealed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The trove is thought to have been a factor in convincing then-US president Donald Trump to pull out of the nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran.

The head of the counterintelligence unit was revealed as a double agent in 2021 but he and all of the other alleged Mossad moles were able to flee the country and are now living in Israel, claimed Ahmadinejad, a firebrand populist known for his hardline anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric and for the violent crackdown that followed his disputed 2009 reelection. He was prevented from running again for president earlier this year.

Other Iranian officials have in the past remarked about Mossad’s penetration in Iran. A former Iranian minister who served as an adviser to former president Hassan Rouhani said in 2022 that senior officials in Tehran should be fearing for their lives due to the “infiltration” of Israel’s spy agency, according to the London-based Persian-language Manoto news site.

[youthchronical]

China urges 'diplomatic' Iran nuclear solution ahead of Beijing talks - The Times of India

File photo (Picture credit: AP) BEIJING: China called on Thursday for a “diplomatic” resolution to the Iran nuclear issue as it prepared to host diplomats from Tehran and Moscow for talks.The United States withdrew from a landmark deal, which had imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief, during President Donald Trump’s first term.Tehran adhered to the 2015 deal…

[girlactionfigure]

According to Axios, who quoted Three U.S. Officials and Two Israeli Officials; an Active Top-Secret Nuclear Weapons Research Site was targeted and destroyed during the Israeli Strike Operation against Iran, which occurred in Late October. The Site, known as “Taleghan-2” located within the Parchin Military Complex roughly 20 Miles to the Southeast of Tehran, was previously used for Iranian Nuclear Research and Development, but was believed to have been Inactive since around 2003. However, in the last year both U.S. and Israeli Intelligence had observed Activity at the Site which suggested they had begun Nuclear Research once again; with the White House having issued a Direct Warning to the Iranian Government in June about the Activity and its potential Consequences. Operations at the Facility are believed to have only been known by a Handful of Iranian Officials, allowing Israel to send Iran a Message that it knows more about its Nuclear Program than even its Government.

[eretzyisrael]

by John Podhoretz

The great delusion of post-Marx history is that change results from vast impersonal forces rather than the workings of individual human actions and unforeseen circumstances. What history records is the way free will and sheer contingency gum up the works of the Great Machine of Progress.

Would there have been an Arab Spring without a fruit vendor in Tunisia setting himself on fire in 2010? What if Derek Chauvin had taken the day off on June 20, 2020? What if there had been a blizzard on January 6, 2021?

And…what if Yahya Sinwar had hit his head on a pipe in a tunnel on October 6, been concussed, and hadn’t given the order to move on the kibbutzim and the Nova festival on October 7? Had he hit his head, would we be living in a world today in which Hamas has been all but destroyed, in which Hezbollah has been literally and perhaps fatally crippled, in which Iranian strikes against Israel have led to the mullahs losing their air defenses while steeling themselves for the loss of their nuclear program—and with the Assads gone from power in Syria after 53 years of ghoulish evil the likes of which the world has rarely ever witnessed?

All for the want of a horseshoe nail.

You could argue that a war conducted by Israel to destroy Hamas was always in the cards, just as the Israelis demonstrated they had thought the same with Hezbollah, since, beginning in 2015, they planned to destroy the Iranian catamite army by creating a shell import-export company that specialized in communications devices—and then laid in wait to activate the plan.

The war happened, though, because Sinwar made it happen. It was different north of Israel. The Jewish state chose the time, manner, and place of the pager detonation. They chose. It didn’t just happen. Impersonal forces didn’t move the levers in Gaza or in Lebanon. Leaders did.

Now, why Israel waited as the country’s north was depopulated and the financial, logistical, and psychological costs of that depopulation mounted will be matters of controversy there for the coming generation. Clearly its leaders believed they had to deal with Sinwar’s unprecedented blow first. And clearly they were managing world opinion, which is to say American opinion.

Israel knew it needed to win the war with Hamas, and that there was no way to conclude the war with Hamas without turning north and taking out Hezbollah. And I think Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet (as much as they all hated and hate each other) knew that the United States under Joe Biden simply did not want Israel to win. Biden and Co. may have wanted Israel to prevail in some fashion—but not if it was going to be too much of a pain in the Democratic Party’s ass.

At some point, Israel could not manage this ludicrous balancing act—prevailing without winning—and it moved. That was a choice. Human choice. And that choice led to other choices. Choices to make it clear that the Iran-backed terrorists had no quarter. Think you’re safe in Tehran? Think again, Haniyeh. Think you’re in the clear in Beirut? Bye-bye, Nasrallah. Think you can strike Israel without consequence from Tehran? No more defenses, mullahs. Think you just stay in Syria and keep sending weaponry through the Levant to your boys south of the Litani River? Say goodbye to Syria, Khamenei.

None of these events was inevitable. Rafah could have gone uninvaded. The pagers could have remained in Hezbollah pockets. Israel could have “taken the win,” as Joe Biden urged, wrongly, as was true of everything he has ever urged. It’s often said that the side that starts and loses a war does so out of a misperception of risk. The misperception that has led to this epochal change in the Middle East has to do with the way foolish Muslim fanatics and equally foolish American liberals view the Jews.

Here’s how they should view us:

We’re the eternal people.

You’re just the nomads.

[mariacallous]

Iran’s outgoing intelligence minster, Esmail Khatib, must be eating his words. In late July, he boasted that “dismantling Mossad’s infiltration network” in Iran was the greatest achievement of his three-year tenure.

Six days later in the heart of Tehran, Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was under the protection of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). What makes the assassination especially noteworthy is that the Iranian regime regards the IRGC’s own intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities as far more sophisticated than those of Khatib’s ministry. In fact, within the IRGC’s internal structures, the security-intelligence axis embedded within the all-powerful IRGC Intelligence Organization is the most powerful and influential force not only within the IRGC, but also more broadly in Iran—the crème de la crème of the regime’s security apparatus.

Let there be no mistake: The assassination of Haniyeh in an IRGC guesthouse in Tehran was a colossal intelligence failure. It has exposed major vulnerabilities within the IRGC’s intelligence apparatus, including likely foreign infiltration at the highest levels.

This is the biggest takeaway from the killing of Haniyeh—not his death, per se. Beyond the immediate question of Iran’s direct response to Israel, the regime’s paranoia at home will likely increase as it tries to root out foreign infiltration and tighten its grip on the security services as its supreme leader, the 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prepares for his succession, a crucial and potentially destabilizing event for the regime.

Of course, this is not the IRGC’s first intelligence failure. In April, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the IRGC Quds Force’s commander for the Levant—responsible for coordinating Hezbollah attacks—was killed in a targeted strike in Syria at a secretive Quds Force annex next to the Iranian Embassy. There was also the targeted killing in November 2020 of IRGC scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, who was also under IRGC protection.

The big difference this time, however, is that the intelligence failure took place while Haniyeh was in an IRGC compound in the heart of Tehran, where he had traveled from Qatar to attend the inauguration of new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

High-value terrorist leaders have always considered Iran to be one of the very few safe havens for them to travel, reside, and operate. These include Imad Mughniyeh—Hezbollah’s chief of operations, assassinated in Syria in 2008—whose daughter wrote in her Farsi memoirs that her father only felt safe on Iranian territory. Al Qaeda leader Saif al-Adel currently resides in Iran. Even leaders of European organized crime syndicates such as the Ireland-based Kinahan transnational criminal group have reportedly found refuge there.

The IRGC’s habit of guaranteeing sanctuary to terrorist figures has enabled it to easily cultivate and co-opt some of the deadliest militant organizations in the world, whose members often enjoy lavish lifestyles while they use Iran for training and plotting terror attacks. According to intelligence reports described by the Wall Street Journal, some of the Hamas militants who breached the Israel-Gaza border and conducted the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre were trained by the IRGC in Iran.

Israel’s ability to kill Haniyeh in an IRGC-protected compound at a time when the IRGC Intelligence Organization would have been on high alert will alter the perceived dynamic of Iran as a safe haven. The assassination will make terrorist leaders think twice before seeking refuge there and likely complicate the relationship between the Iranian regime and its proxies.

This is a significant setback for the regime. Whereas the intelligence leaks that led to the assassinations of Zahedi or Quds Force Commander Qassem Suleimani in Iraq in 2020 could be blamed on foreign moles, the responsibility in this case lies squarely with the IRGC. The IRGC’s fear of losing face can be seen in the organization’s quick denials of Western media reports that explosives had been smuggled into the IRGC guesthouse where Haniyeh was staying. To deflect blame from the IRGC, officials instead blamed a projectile fired from nearby. These attempts to dodge responsibility, however, did not prevent Iranian authorities from arresting more than two dozen individuals linked to the guesthouse and overhauling security protocols.

This strike in the heart of Tehran will only increase the anxieties of an already-paranoid Khamenei and IRGC about Israeli infiltration at the highest levels of security in the IRGC Intelligence Organization.

Over the past few years, Khamenei has sought to mitigate foreign infiltration by purging the IRGC’s senior ranks following successive domestic intelligence failures. In 2009, for example, after the Green Movement threatened the stability of the regime following the disputed reelection of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Khamenei restructured the IRGC’s Basij militia and intelligence apparatuses.

A significant ouster also took place in June 2022, when hard-line cleric Hossein Taeb—one of the regime’s most powerful figures—was removed as the head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization. Taeb’s replacement—Brig. Gen. Mohammad Kazemi, the former head of the IRGC Counterintelligence Organization, which is tasked with identifying moles in the regime—exposed the ayatollah’s paranoid state of mind in relation to foreign infiltration. Replacing a cleric with a seasoned intelligence commander was also intended to improve the operational efficacy of the IRGC’s operations abroad.

But if Kazemi was brought in to make up for the successive intelligence failures that had led to key regime figures and nuclear sites being targeted and IRGC attacks against Israelis being consistently foiled, Haniyeh’s death showed that it was to no avail.

The man who succeeded Kazemi as the IRGC Counterintelligence Organization commander, Majid Khademi, will also come under new scrutiny: His agency is tasked with rooting out spies within the IRGC, and it clearly failed. Also at issue is the future of the IRGC’s Ansar al-Mahdi Protection Unit, which guards high-level Iranian and visiting officials. This unit has suffered from turnover in recent years amid suspicion of infiltration by foreign intelligence organizations. For example, its commander Ali Nasiri was removed in 2019 amid suspicions about his loyalties. Nasiri reappeared in the Counterintelligence Organization and was reportedly arrested there later. His successor, Brig. Gen. Fathollah Jomeiri, has overseen a series of spectacular failures, including the assassinations of Fakhrizadeh and Haniyeh. In all likelihood, officers of the Ansar al-Mahdi Protection Unit were guarding both.

Now that these vulnerabilities have been exposed, the IRGC will be all the more determined to save face and make up for its failings. There are numerous short-, medium-, and long-term options for its leadership to respond.

In Tehran, Khamenei’s appetite for doubling down on purging the regime’s security-intelligence apparatus will increase following Haniyeh’s death. The foreign infiltration that enabled the assassination of such a well-protected, high-value target has taken place against the backdrop of preparations for the supreme leader’s succession. Over the past five years, Khamenei has put most his remaining energy into ensuring a smooth and orderly succession process. His passing will inevitably be a potentially destabilizing moment for the regime, and he will want to ensure that the IRGC has full control over the security situation prior to his demise.

The sudden death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was one of the two front-runners to succeed Khamenei, was a major setback for the ayatollah’s succession plans. At a time when the security-intelligence apparatus of the regime has clearly been compromised, guaranteeing the security of the other candidate—Khamenei’s power-hungry son, Mojtaba—will be at the front of the aging ayatollah’s mind. The complete unraveling of Khamenei’s succession plans—and a major danger to the survival of the regime—is now only one assassination away. After the Israeli operation in Tehran last week, another wave of internal purges is all but guaranteed.

The Iranian regime’s response to Israel could take several forms. While much of the global commentary is framing Iran’s response to Israel in terms of the usual tit for tat, Khamenei and the IRGC will be driven by different concerns. For the latter, the response will be driven by the intent to uproot foreign infiltration and inflict enough damage to the Israelis to stop them operating against the regime on Iranian soil.

Until now, the main discussion on how this would be achieved has been centered on the likelihood of a conventional military response, similar to the Iranian drone and missile barrage against Israel in April.

In tandem with this type of conventional attack, a global campaign of terror against Israelis and Jews should not be ruled out. After various IRGC plots to kill Israelis were foiled in recent years, Kazemi will be all the more motivated to make up for these failures. The IRGC may calculate that while it may be unable to meaningfully shift Israel’s calculus through conventional means—due to the Israeli military’s military superiority, especially in air defense—a campaign of terror against unarmed Israelis and Jewish people abroad could put enough pressure on the Israeli government to avoid striking inside Iran.

Another option is for the IRGC to significantly ramp up its nuclear escalation, which is already near breakout levels. Increasing enrichment to 90 percent, even if only by a symbolic amount, is something that the regime could consider as a way to show Israel that the Haniyeh assassination crossed a red line. Given the lack of any serious response to Iran’s nuclear activities for years, Iranian decision-makers may calculate that they would not face much backlash on the world stage.

However, Tehran’s main concern will be with its own intelligence and security failures. These could have significant long-term implications for the Iranian regime’s military and security services—with purges and paranoia lasting long after the promised riposte to Israel.

[beardedmrbean]

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s capital and outlying provinces have faced rolling power blackouts for weeks in October and November, with electricity cuts disrupting people’s lives and businesses. And while several factors are likely involved, some suspect cryptocurrency mining has played a role in the outages.

Iran economy has been hobbled for years by international sanctions over its advancing nuclear program. The country’s fuel reserves have plummeted, with the government selling off more to cover budget shortfalls as wars rage in the Middle East and Tehran grapples with mismanagement.

The demand on the grid has not let up, however — even as Iranians stopped using air conditioners as the weather cooled in the fall and before winter months set in, when people fire up their gas heaters.

Meanwhile, bitcoin’s value has rocketed to all-time highs after the U.S. election was clinched by Donald Trump. It hit the $100,000 mark for the first time last week, just hours after the president-elect said he intends to nominate cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to be the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The surge has led some to suspect that organized cryptocurrency mining — sucking away huge amounts of power — has played a part in the outages in Iran.

“Unfortunately, some opportunistic and exploitative individuals use subsidized electricity, public networks and other resources for cryptocurrency mining without authorization,” Mostafa Rajabi, the CEO of Iran’s government-owned power company, said back in August.

Iran’s state energy company did not respond to a request for comment.

Power outages have come and gone in the past in Iran, which struggles with aging equipment at many of its plants. Over the summer, sustained blackouts struck industrial parks near Tehran and other cities. Then in October and November, rolling power cuts across Tehran’s neighborhoods became the norm in daylight hours.

Climate change has been blamed in part, with persisting droughts and less water running through Iranian hydroelectric dams.

Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered several power plants to stop burning mazut, a high-polluting heavy fuel common in the former Soviet Union countries. Tehran has used it in the past to make up the difference in electricity generation.

Fuel reserves, both in diesel and natural gas, also remain low even though Iran is an OPEC member and home to one of the world’s second-largest reserves of natural gas, behind only Russia. There’s been no explanation for the decision to keep those reserves low, though critics have suggested Iran likely sold the fuel to cover budget shortfalls.

For his part, Pezeshkian has said that he must “honestly tell the public about the energy situation.”

“We have no choice but to consume energy economically, especially gas, in the current conditions and the cold weather,” he said in mid-November. “I myself use warm clothes at home; others can do the same.”

Still, winter heating isn’t in full swing quite yet on Tehran — raising questions where the power is going.

In many poor and densely populated neighborhoods across the country, people have access to free, unmetered electricity. Mosques, schools, hospitals and other sites also receive free power.

And with electricity in general sold at subsidized rates, bitcoin processing centers have boomed. They require immense amounts of electricity to power specialized computers and to keep them cool.

Determining how much power is used up by mining is difficult, particularly as miners now use virtual private networks that mask their location, said Masih Alavi, the CEO of an Iranian-government-licensed mining company called Viraminer.

Also, miners have been renting apartments to hide their rigs inside of empty homes. “They distribute their machines across several apartments to avoid being detected,” Alavi said.

In 2021, one estimate suggested Iran processed as much as $1 billion in bitcoin transactions. That value likely has spiked, given bitcoin’s rise. Meanwhile, Iran’s blackouts began in earnest as bitcoin spiked from around $67,000 to over $100,000 in its historic rally.

Rajabi, the state electricity company CEO, said his firm would offer rewards of $725 for people to report unlicensed bitcoin farms.

The farms have caused “an abnormal increase in consumption, disruptions, and problems in power networks,” Rajabi said.

The amount of power used by some 230,000 unlicensed devices is equivalent, he said, to the entire power needs of Iran’s Markazi province — one of the country’s chief manufacturing sites.

Iranian officials and media have not linked bitcoin’s surge and the ongoing blackouts but the public has, with social media users resharing a video showing a massive bitcoin farm earlier this year uncovered in Iran. A voice off camera asks how it was possible the electrical company did not discover the farm sooner.

The U.S. Treasury and Israel have targeted bitcoin wallets that they’ve alleged are affiliated with operations run by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to finance allied militant groups in Mideast war zones.

That suggests the Guard itself — one of the most-powerful forces within Iran — may be involved in the mining.

In contrast, Iranian media nearly every day report on individual mining operations being raided by police.

Iran may see bitcoin as a hedge against increased pressure from the incoming Trump administration and as regional allies are engulfed in turmoil, said Richard Nephew, an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“The question for the economists inside Iran is do we trust this enough to fund the government,” said Nephew, who has long worked on Iran issues and sanction strategies in the U.S. government.

However, he cautioned against thinking of bitcoin as a magic bullet for Iran, particularly as bitcoin wallets can be targeted in sanctions.

“A pattern of behavior screams out to intelligence services,” Nephew said. “It screams out to bank compliance departments.”

[darkmaga-returns]

The Aerospace Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) began a wide-scale military drill program in cooperation with the Iranian army in the central province of Isfahan on 7 January, aimed at simulating the defense of a key nuclear site from aerial threats.

The first stage of the drill, dubbed Eqtedar 1403, kicked off on Tuesday near the surroundings of the Natanz nuclear facility. It was ordered by Brigadier General Qader Rahimzadeh, commander of Iran's Khatem al-Anbia Air Defense Base.

The drill focused on simulating the defense of the nuclear site from several “aerial threats” while under “electronic warfare conditions,” according to Iranian news outlet Press TV.

It came after several other military drills across the country. 

IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Naeini announced on 6 January that around 30 land, air, and sea drills had taken place across six western and southern provinces in Iran, adding that these exercises will continue until March. Naeini said the drills were designed to counter “new threats.”

“The number of drills has almost doubled this year compared to last year, in response to the evolving threat landscape. These exercises are significantly larger in scope and sophistication, featuring new weaponry and expanded participation of brigades engaged in realistic operations,” he told the Financial Times (FT) in a press briefing in the capital, Tehran. 

As part of this countrywide program, the largest drills are set to take place in the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which a third of the world’s oil supply crosses. 

The IRGC announced on 4 January that it began a large-scale military drill – dubbed ‘Great Prophet 19’ – in the western Kermanshah province, involving different Iranian special units and branches of the IRGC ground force.

[partisan-by-default]

Sa'ar's comments coincide with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vow to "finish the job" of derailing Iran's nuclear ambitions with Trump's help, after the U.S. president strongly sided with Israel during his first weeks in office and raised the prospect of "clearing out" the Gaza Strip.

Trump has said he prefers to make a deal with Iran rather than "bombing the hell out of it," but his top security adviser, Mike Waltz, stressed more recently that "all options" remain on the table and that Washington will be satisfied with nothing less than a total dismantling of Tehran's nuclear program.

Adding to the urgency of addressing the Iran threat, Sa'ar said, was a trend by which Iranian weapons are being smuggled to the West Bank via the border with Jordan. "We are now confronting a huge attempt by Iran via money and weapons that are floating to what you call the West Bank," he said, adding that the aim was to "inflame these territories."

[nicklloydnow]

On Today’s Episode of World War III

“On Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed our worst suspicions concerning the pace of Iran’s nuclear weaponization program. “Iran,” it concluded, “has increased the rate at which it is producing near weapons grade uranium in recent weeks, reversing a previous slowdown that started in the middle of this year.”

According to the IAEA, Iranian enrichment of Uranium-235 to near weapons-grade level had increased to an estimated 9 kilograms per month by the end of November. It takes just five times that amount of uranium, enriched to 90 percent, to sustain a nuclear chain reaction for one nuclear bomb.

Presently, it is believed that Iran has enriched at least 128.3 kilograms of Uranium-235 to 60 percent, and 567.1 kilograms to 20 percent. Do the math based on Iran Watch’s estimates of its current centrifuge capacity, and Iran is now capable of enriching sufficient mass to 90 percent for three nuclear bombs in less than one week. Tehran could have a fourth bomb in one to two weeks more, and a fifth within roughly one month’s time.

(…)

We are in a very different world now than when that deal was first made. Moscow and Beijing are actively engaged in the equivalent of an ideological World War III against the U.S. that is increasingly turning kinetic. Iran has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to undermine U.S. diplomacy and national security interests throughout the Middle East.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was behind the funding and planning of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel. Tehran’s plunging of Gaza into war undermined U.S. efforts to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and Iran-sponsored militias including Hezbollah and the Houthis are actively attacking U.S. military and naval forces in Iraq, Syria, Red Sea, and Gulf of Aden.

As his country nears a nuclear breakout, Khamenei is only becoming bolder. On Dec. 23, the Pentagon reported that the Chem Pluto, a chemical tanker sailing from Saudi Arabia to India, was struck in the Indian Ocean “by a drone launched from Iran.” Iranian threats against the West and Europe are also starting to come fast and furious. On Christmas Eve, Tehran threatened to close the Straits of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Sea.

Iran will become bolder still if allowed to achieve nuclear status. We are on borrowed time now, rapidly approaching the point wherein a kinetic response will be the only option remaining.

(…)

On the Doomsday Clock, it is already five minutes and counting past midnight in Armageddon. Unless the White House acts now, Iran’s status as a nuclear power will be a fait accompli.”

“More than 100 people were killed and scores injured Wednesday in two blasts that struck the central Iranian city of Kerman, emergency services said. Thousands of mourners had gathered there to commemorate Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani on the fourth anniversary of his assassination in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in 2020.

A spokesman for the country’s emergency department was quoted by Iran’s state-run news agency as saying 103 people were killed and 188 were injured.

The deputy governor of Kerman, the slain general’s hometown, said the incident was a “terrorist attack,” according to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The explosions occurred about a half-mile from Soleimani’s burial place, on a road to the graveyard, the agency reported.

(…)

The blasts Wednesday came amid intensifying involvement by Iranian-backed militant groups in a confrontation with Israel and its principal backer, the United States, during Israel’s war in Gaza.”

“Hamas on Tuesday accused Israel of killing Saleh al-Arouri, a top leader of the group, along with two commanders from its armed wing, the Qassam Brigades. Mr. al-Arouri is the senior-most Hamas figure to be killed since Israel vowed to destroy the organization and eliminate its leadership after a deadly Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.

Mr. al-Arouri was assassinated in an explosion in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, marking the first such assassination of a top Hamas official outside the West Bank and Gaza in recent years. It comes as officials across the region are worried about the war in Gaza igniting a wider conflagration.

(…)

“No one is safe if they had any hand in planning, raising money for or carrying out these attacks,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions. Citing Israel’s vow to hunt down the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 attack wherever they are, the official added, “This is just the beginning, and it’ll go on for years.”

(…)

Mr. al-Arouri played a key role in Hamas’s relationships with its regional allies and in increasing Hamas’s military capabilities, according to regional and Western officials. A longtime Hamas operative, he was one of the founders of the group’s armed wing and was linked to a number of attacks on Israeli civilians, including the kidnapping and killing of three teenagers in the West Bank in 2014, which he called a “heroic operation.”

(…)

Mr. al-Arouri worked with Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s chief in Gaza, in recent years to link the group’s military wing more closely to Iran, which, regional security officials say, most likely helped the group develop some of the capabilities it used in the Oct. 7 attack. Israel has accused Mr. Sinwar of helping to plot the assault, which officials say killed about 1,200 people and saw 240 others abducted to Gaza.

(…)

Israel for decades has made assassinations of its enemies in other countries a key part of its defense strategy. In the past two weeks, Iran has accused Israel of assassinating two Iranian generals in Iraq and Syria who liaised with the regional militant groups backed by Iran. Israel has also carried out high-profile assassinations of senior Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists in Iran and Syria, including Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and Col. Sayad Khodayee, a commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.”

[unhonestlymirror]

Iran is ready to transfer Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar ballistic missiles to Russia, ISW analyst

According to analyst Amin Soltani, Iran will be able to sell missiles to Moscow already in October due to the completion of the UN resolution.

However, in exchange, Tehran can ask Moscow for Su-35 aircraft, S-400 air defense systems, help with space, missile, and nuclear programs, as well as Western weapons that were "trophied" in Ukraine. Apparently, the Iranians intend to use this to manufacture their own.

(c) TSN

[moragarsia]

Like attracts like

On September 13, in the Amur Region of the Russian Federation, at the Vostochny cosmodrome, a meeting was held between North Korean dictators Kim Jong-un and Russia Putin. This meeting was the first in the last 4 years. Putin now rarely sees foreign leaders: he missed a meeting with BRICS allies in South Africa, the G20 summit in India, and did not even go to Turkey, having received guarantees of personal security from Erdogan. The main reason why Putin does not leave Russia is the banal fear of arrest on the basis of a warrant from the International Criminal Court for the abduction of Ukrainian children.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin has finally established himself as one of the most toxic partners in the global political arena. Cooperation with the Kremlin dictator today means getting your hands dirty in the blood of the Ukrainian people and questioning your good name and reputation.

Unable to enlist the support of world leaders, the head of the Kremlin seeks meetings and help from outcasts like himself. Russia's strategic partners today are Belarus, Iran, China, a number of African countries and the DPRK. In recent years, Russia has been rapidly transforming from a semi-market pseudo-democracy suspended in transition with destroyed civil liberties to a terrible, embittered, isolated, militaristic North Korea, a country with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, but always short of rice for food.

Given that the "special operation" dragged on for almost 19 months, and the capacities of the Russian military-industrial complex leave much to be desired, Putin has to negotiate the supply of weapons, including with the leaders of rogue states such as North Korea. Specifically, we are talking about the supply ofartillery shells and anti-tank missiles to Russia.

North Korea has in stock an impressive arsenal of artillery shells, mines, missiles and other weapons, which are analogous to Soviet models. It also has stockpiles of anti-tank missiles and surface-to-air missiles. North Korea is one of the few countries with sufficient stockpiles of Soviet-era tanks, such as those that Moscow uses in the fighting in Ukraine, such as the T-54 and T-62, and can supply them with spare parts. The list of weapons that Russia would like to receive is likely to include 122-mm and 152-mm artillery shells, as well as 122-mm missiles.

According to experts, the supply of ammunition from North Korea is unlikely to be decisive in the short term, but it will make it easier for Russia to continue the war of attrition, giving the Russian military industry the opportunity to catch up with demand.

Under severe international sanctions, North Korea does not have access to technology that would allow it to mass-produce any precision weapons. Therefore, Kim Jong-un, in turn, expects to receive missile technology and food aid from the Russian Federation. Russia is in a position to assist North Korea's nuclear program and intercontinental ballistic missile program. This is not the first time Putin has armed rogue regimes, after all, with his assistance, Iran has managed to make significant progress in the development of a nuclear bomb and become a real threat to the interests of the West, including Israel, in the region. Armed with new knowledge, North Korea will create additional problems for the United States on the other side of the globe, in the Pacific region.

Moscow's cooperation with Pyongyang and Tehran creates new global threats, so Russia's defeat in the war with Ukraine is in the interests of the entire civilized world.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Melanie Phillips

The eagerness to assume that Islamists have reformed themselves accompanies the West’s suicidal refusal to see what is so plainly the case—that whether it involves Shia or Sunni Muslims, Hezbollah or the Houthis, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamists are waging world war against unbelievers wherever they are.

The Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, set in train a series of events that have shaken the geopolitical kaleidoscope. Tiny Israel is now well on the way to smashing the Shia axis and—in the words of a member of the Iranian regime—becoming the foremost power in the region.

This also represents a shattering defeat for the strategy of former President Barack Obama, which has been continued by the Biden administration. This strategy was—remarkably—to empower the Islamic Republic of Iran.

To this end, the Obama and Biden administrations spared no effort to appease and protect the Tehran regime. In the war that followed the Oct. 7 pogrom, Washington refused to respond appropriately to repeated Iranian attacks while putting Israel under enormous pressure also not to do so.

And, after Donald Trump won the presidential election last month, the United States renewed a controversial sanctions waiver that will allow Iran access to some $10 billion in payments from Iraq.

The stupendous developments in the Middle East are a cause for unprecedented optimism. With the likely destruction of the Shia axis, the way will be set for Saudi Arabia finally to make its peace with Israel and thus end, once and for all, the Arab war against the Jewish state. The cause of the Palestinian Arabs, who never were the issue until the West chose to make them so, would simply evaporate.

To envisage this is not to fall into the trap of wishful thinking. The dangers for Israel and the free world remain acute and unresolved. Iran is poised to get the nuclear bomb, and there are fears that with its back to the wall, it will now do just that.

But Iran now has no military defenses or proxy shields. This is therefore the moment to destroy totally its nuclear program and maybe finish off this evil regime altogether.

To do this, however, Israel needs America to be involved. Will Trump be willing to do this? Or will he believe that he alone can make a deal that will tame the Iranian regime?

Any such deal would be illusory. Iran has lied about its activities for more than four decades and won’t stop now.

The old order has been shattered. Bad actors have been weakened; others are now empowered. It will take wise heads indeed to turn this extraordinarily complex set of developments into a real leap for peace in the world. It can be done. Are there the leaders to do it?

[william-r-melich]

A Two-Word Solution - 04/15/2024

I hate all this war stuff. I wasn't looking forward to writing this article, but it is something I must do. We find ourselves as a country in a precarious situation of teetering on the edge of being pulled into a major, global conflict. I gathered some information from Joshua Philipp's podcast on Epoch Times, Crossroads. He read the following from an article in the "Express" in UK, published at 10:12 (their local time) on Sunday, April 14, 2024, updated the same day at 12:06.

"The possibility of Iran ramping up its enrichment activities to acquire a nuclear weapon has sent shockwaves through the region and in the West."

"Iran has already vowed to launch a 'stronger' offensive against Israel's response to Saturday's attack."

"A new government-funded billboard in Palestine Square in Tehran was unveiled last night after Iran launched hundreds of drones, missiles, and rockets at Israel with Hebrew text."

"Senior Iranian figures have urged Supreme Leader Khamenei to reconsider the country's stance on nuclear weapons, with calls to cancel the existing fatwa against their assembly."

"The shift in rhetoric has led to speculation in the West about Iran's intentions and the Supreme Leader's willingness to entertain the idea of pursuing nuclear armament."

"Mahmoud-Reza Aghamir, a prominent nuclear physics professor with ties to the Iranian regime, further fueled suspicions by suggesting that 'it would be a lot easier to build a bomb than to keep holding so much enriched uranium at high levels.'"

"Iran's possession of 150 Kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent" (which is the threshold for Israel to send counter attacks against Iran.) "has raised alarms about the potential for weaponization."

"Israel is closely monitoring these developments, aware that any move towards nuclear capabilities by Iran could prompt a significant military response from the United States."

"The fear is that Iran could discretely advance its nuclear program, leaving intelligence agencies as the only means of detecting such activities."

Sounds pretty iffy to me, a lot of what they could do. Yet, I suppose Israel needs to error on the side of pre-empting any possible nuclear attack. After Iran sent over 200 missiles and drones toward Israel, Israel, the U.S., and other allies knocked down 99% of them, leaving very little damage and seriously injuring a 10 year-old girl. My heart and thoughts go out to her and her family, I hope she'll be okay.

On his podcast this morning, Joshua Philipp had stated that the United States policy of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) is no longer in place. So, if a country uses a nuclear bomb on us or one of our major allies, then we would nuke them. When Russia threatened had threatened to possibly nuke Ukraine, the U.S. only threatened Russia with "economic and diplomatic harm." That's too weak of a response, in my opinion. So, if they use a nuke, we'll use a money-clip. Hell, we might as well use a paperclip.

I caught an informative article on Josh's show this morning which came from Time magazine back in November 2022, the headline reads:

"World Leaders Condemn Putin's War, Nuclear Threats Amid Pressure Campaign Against Russia"

"The U.S. and other world leaders issued a joint declaration Wednesday condemning Russia's War in Ukraine and denouncing threats of using nuclear weapons, an intimidation tactic that's become commonplace for Russian President Vladimir Putin since launching his invasion nine months ago."

"'The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible', read the statement, composed by the world's 20 largest economies. 'The peaceful resolution of conflicts, efforts to address crises, as well as diplomacy and dialogue, are vital. Today's era must not be of war.'"

"The 17-page document marks a victory for the Biden Administration and global allies, which sought to end this year's summit in Bali, Indonesia with a statement censuring Russia for its unprovoked military campaign in Ukraine. In recent weeks, the Biden team has launched a discreet, multi-pronged effort to pressure Moscow to dial back the increasingly reckless bluster that has sparked fears the world was nearing the brink of nuclear war."

"Through a series of one-on one discussions and back channels between top U.S. and Russian officials, combined with diplomatic maneuvering with other nations' leaders, the Administration has worked to get Putin and his government to stop threatening the use of nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, where Moscow has faced mounting losses, this fall."

"In a rare disclosure on Monday, the White House revealed CIA Director William Burns met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin in Ankara, Turkey's capital, to discuss potential costs to the Kremlin if it decides to use a nuclear weapon in the Ukraine conflict. 'He is not conducting negotiations of any kind,' a White House spokeswoman said. 'He is conveying a message on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, and the risks of escalation to strategic stability.'"

"The same day, President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a joint-statement that said nuclear weapons should never be used, particularly in Ukraine. The rebuke was notworthy considering Beijing has tacitly approved of Putin's actions and shown reticence to join the international community's widespread condemnation of invasion."

"Read more: U.S. Unveils Strategy Threats from China and Russia."

"The message the U.S. seeks to send is clear: if Moscow goes nuclear in Ukraine, it will only experience further economic and diplomatic isolation on the world stage. There are indications that the strategy, which has gathered momentum behind the scenes since late September after Putin illegally annexed four occupied regions of Ukraine then suggested he'd defend the territory with nuclear arms, may be working. Putin back tracked late last month by stating Russia would gain nothing through launching a nuclear strike. 'We see no need for that,' he said October 27 at a conference of international foreign policy experts. 'There is no point in that, neither political nor military.'"

"Concerned observers are cautiously optimistic that the U.S. approach will continue to draw Putin away from the nuclear threshold, but they worry about the ongoing instability of relation between the world's foremost nuclear powers. 'The Biden team has been effective in cautioning Putin not to cross the nuclear line, warning of the consequences, and quietly encouraging others with influence like China to provide similar messages to Putin. They've done this very adeptly while avoiding provocations,' says Lynn Rusten, vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative and former senior official on arms control." In my opinion, I think this writer is being too kind to Briben (Biden). I really don't think he's effective in deterring Putin's aggression.

This next article just came out in the Epoch Times: "Israel Announces It Will Respond to Iran Missile Attack as Airlines Cancel Flights to Region." It begins with this: "Israel's miliary chief said on April 15 that Israel will respond to Iran's missile and drone attack, but it's not clear how or when."

"Herzi Halevi, head of the Israel Defense Forces, told reporters that Iran's strikes "will be met with a response" without elaborating. He spoke during a visit to the Nevatim air base, which Israel sayts suffered light damage in the Iranian attack.

“Iran wanted to harm the strategic capabilities of the State of Israel—that is something that had not happened before. We were prepared for the ‘Iron Shield’ operation—preparation that brought Iran to also meet air superiority,” he said. “Last Monday, we saw what was being organized, and we think that the State of Israel is very strong and knows how to deal with it alone, but with a threat so numerous and so far away, we are always happy to have [the United States] with us. Looking ahead, we are considering our steps, and this launch of so many missiles, cruise missiles, and UAVs into the territory of the State of Israel will be met with a response.”

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been huddling with top officials to discuss a possible response to Iran’s attack involving hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles."

"Iran’s attack on April 13 was the first time Tehran directly targeted Israel since the current regime took over in 1979. However, the country has been engaged in proxy attacks against both Israel and the United States originating from a number of Middle Eastern countries."

"On April 15, a number of airline companies canceled or delayed flights again after the Iranian missile and drone attack. United Airlines and Air Canada, notably, canceled some flights into Tel Aviv as well as flights into Jordan."

"Iranian officials said the attack was carried out in response to an Israeli airstrike on April 1 on a Syrian compound that left two Iranian generals and other officials dead."

"'Our response will be much larger than tonight’s military action if Israel retaliates against Iran,' armed forces chief of staff Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri told state-run media in articles published on April 14. He claimed that Iran warned the United States through Switzerland that any support of an Israeli counterattack against Iran would lead to American assets being targeted."

"After the drones and missiles were launched, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard issued a direct warning to the United States through state-run IRNA that the 'U.S. government is warned any support or participation in harming Iran’s interests will be followed by decisive and regretting response by Iran’s armed forces.'"

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said this on April 15 on whether the U.S. will be briefed on any response plans of Israel: "We will let the Israelis speak to that. "We are not involved in their decision-making process about a potential response."

"The Iranian attack on April 13 was the first time that Iran has launched a direct military assault on Israel, despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The attack happened less than two weeks after a suspected Israeli strike in Syria that killed two Iranian generals in an Iranian consular building."

"Israel’s military stated that its Arrow system, which shoots down ballistic missiles outside the atmosphere, handled most interceptions and noted that 'strategic partners' were involved."

"U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that U.S. military forces 'intercepted dozens of missiles and UAVs en route to Israel, launched from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen,' referring to a term used for unmanned aerial vehicles."

"'At my direction, to support the defense of Israel, the U.S. military moved aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the region over the course of the past week,' President Joe Biden said in a separate statement over the past weekend. “Thanks to these deployments and the extraordinary skill of our service members, we helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles."

"Israel and Iran have been on a collision course throughout Israel’s six-month war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip after members of the group carried out a cross-border attack that left more than 1,200 civilians dead. More than 250 people were kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, incident, according to officials. Israel’s government is still negotiating with Hamas for the release of the remaining hostages."

"The Associated Press contributed to this report."

With the weakness of the current appeaser-in-thief, Shmoe Briben (Joe Biden), this is absolutely the worst time for an imminent threat of a world war, let alone a nuclear one. I see this compromised-corrupt-oatmeal-for-brains-commie-ander-in-disbelief as not doing any affective deterrence, lying all the time and saying all the wrong things as he makes everything about himself on what a great job he's doing; all the while he's really been doing everything possible to cause this horrible situation which never would have happened under Donald Trump. Yes, most definitely he caused this dumb war by funding a major adversary of ours with billions of dollars which went directly to the terrorists who barbarically raped, tortured, and murdered so many innocent Israeli citizens; men, women, and children: brutally cutting out eyes, chopping off limbs, burning and beheading babies. Briben has a lot of blood on his hands which makes me both sickened and angry to the core. This kid-sniffing, corrupt bag of a rotting maggot, sub-human creature in the White House; wantonly funding such demon-savage, terrorist thugs is a heinous act driven by stupidity on steroids on a level of evil that falls perpetually deep into the infinite pits of darkness...

Yet, my hope is that I'm wrong in assuming that he'll not do enough of the right thing, and too much of the wrong thing to prevent a major global conflict. Realistically, I don't think it will come to that because Iran has to know that in spite of all the wokeness in our military at the top ranks, we would wipe them off the map in a direct war with them. I believe that China is waiting in the wings for us to get involved with at least a couple more wars while being hit with multiple, domestic terror attacks so that we'll be distracted and spread out thinly enough to give them a better chance at defeating us. We must make it to the election this November and get Trump re-elected. We must defeat Shmoe Briben, as Trump says, "get out of here, you're fired!" If we don't, we'll be seriously futticked! What a mess! Aside from the obvious, needed act of cutting off all the funding to Iran and their terrorist proxies, I have a simple, 2-word solution; stop fighting!

[eretzyisrael]

By Lazar Berman

Speaking nearly two weeks after the US election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s judgment and policies at major junctions in Israel’s ongoing war against Iran and its proxies.

“The US had reservations and suggested that we not enter Gaza,” said Netanyahu in the Knesset plenum on Monday. “It had reservations about entering Gaza City, Khan Younis, and, most critically, strongly opposed entry into Rafah.”

Administration officials had publicly urged Israel to calibrate its Rafah offensive to minimize civilian harm.

“President Biden told me that if we go in, we will be alone,” Netanyahu said. “He also said that he would stop shipments of important weapons to us. And so he did. A few days later, [US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken appeared and repeated the same things and I told him — we will fight with our nails.”

The US withheld a single shipment of 2,000-lb bombs, allowing all other weapon transfers to continue.

Netanyahu also criticized US positions after Iran’s drone and missile attacks on Israel: “Again, we were told by our friend that there is no need to respond. And I said that sitting and not reacting is not acceptable, and we responded.”

‘Specific component’ in Iran nuke program hit

The prime minister said that the Israeli response last month took out air defense batteries and “inflicted real damage on Iran’s ballistic missile production capability,” as well as targeting its nuclear program.

“It’s not a secret, it has been published,” Netanyahu said. “There is a specific component in their nuclear program that was hit in this attack.”

However, Netanyahu added that Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon has not been blocked. “We’ve delayed it… but it has progressed” over the past few years, he said. Iran has “advanced its enrichment; it still has a long way to go in other areas.” The imperative to stop Iran’s march to the bomb “is on us,” he said.

Israel’s April strike on Iran, Netanyahu said, took out one of four Russian-supplied S-300 surface-to-air missile defense batteries around Tehran. In October, Israel destroyed the remaining three batteries and caused serious damage to Iran’s ballistic missile production capabilities and its ability to produce solid fuel, which is used in long-range ballistic missiles.

Last week, the Axios news site revealed that Israel destroyed an active nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin during last month’s attack on Iran.

[mariacallous]

Iran’s national security doctrine is rooted in the painful legacy of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. That conflict was marked by Iran’s international isolation, Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and cities, and devastating shortages of military supplies. These experiences laid the groundwork for Iran’s “forward defense” strategy, built around three pillars: ballistic missiles and drones; support for regional nonstate actors; and a threshold nuclear capability. Each element of this strategy is designed to address vulnerabilities exposed during that war. However, the Israel-Hamas war has demonstrated the vulnerability of this strategy.

Recent Israeli operations against Iranian proxies, attacks within Iran’s own borders, and growing domestic calls to rethink its nuclear stance have presented Tehran with critical choices about the nuclear program’s strategic role. In recent months, two of the three pillars of Iran’s forward defense approach have been weakened in the face of Israelis’ demonstrable escalation dominance. Now the nuclear program is the only intact pillar, but the situation puts Tehran in a bind: Should it decide to cross the nuclear threshold, it could trigger a war with the United States and Israel.

Ballistic missiles have constituted the backbone of Iran’s national defense capability. Reliance on ballistic missiles finds its roots in the Iran-Iraq War, when Iranian cities were subjected to Iraq’s widespread use of missiles. “Tehran was burning every night under [Iraq’s] missiles. … We didn’t have missiles—we had nothing to defend ourselves with,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, observed in 2018 about the war. That experience led Iranians to invest heavily in expanding missile production capacity, ultimately developing the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the region, with a variety of short-range and medium-range missiles—especially important in the absence of a modern air force capable of projecting Iran’s power in the region.

This year, Israel has in effect destroyed Iran’s most advanced air defense systems received from Russia in 2016. Following the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent outbreak of the Gaza conflict, Iran launched hundreds of ballistic and cruise missiles at Israeli targets in two separate attacks. While the first attack in April was largely defeated, the second missile attack on Oct. 1 was far more effective, with several ballistic missiles successfully bypassing Israel’s layered missile defense system, hitting the Nevatim air base.

Israel’s Oct. 26 response to Iran’s attack was far more effective than its previous response on April 19, which destroyed an S-300 radar at Isfahan’s 8th Tactical Air Base. The recent strikes marked the largest attack on the Iranian territory since the Iran-Iraq War. Reports indicate that the Israeli Air Force, using Iraqi airspace, launched attacks against missile production facilities and S-300 air defenses that protected critical oil and petrochemical refineries, as well as systems guarding a large gas field in Iran. These attacks have left Iran’s critical infrastructure extremely vulnerable to future strikes. As an unnamed Iranian source familiar with the country’s air defenses highlighted to me, “Iran’s air space is wide open like a highway.”

The October attack, which killed at least four Iranian army personnel, was initially played down by Iranian officials. However, the rhetoric slowly began to change, with senior Iranian officials vowing that Iran will “use all available tools to deliver a definite and effective response.” Iran now faces a difficult choice: It must carefully weigh the risks of retaliating against Israel against the possibility of it escalating into a broader and potentially devastating conflict.

Iran’s strategic isolation and lack of regional allies have profoundly shaped its national defense doctrine. Addressing Iran’s loneliness in the region, President Masoud Pezeshkian said in September, “I am the president of a country that has repeatedly faced threats, wars, and occupations. No one has ever come to our aid, and our declarations of neutrality have been ignored.” In the absence of powerful state allies, Iran has turned to nonstate actors to project its power and conduct proxy warfare beyond its borders to defend the homeland. These proxy forces, which form the second pillar of Iran’s national defense, are intended to limit the operational freedom of its regional adversaries and impose costs on Iran’s adversaries. In February, Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s envoy to the United Nations, compared Tehran’s relationship with what he called “resistance groups” to the NATO alliance. Essentially, these proxies bolster Iran’s security by providing an asymmetrical deterrent against the superior conventional forces of Saudi Arabia and Israel. However, growing pressure on its so-called Axis of Resistance forces has put Iran in a difficult position.

Iran now faces a critical choice: to back its allies, risking direct confrontation with Israel—a scenario referred to as chain-ganging—or to remain on the sidelines, potentially leaving its regional partners to fend for themselves. However, this would be contrary to the primary purpose of these forces—that is, to keep Iran out of a fight. The assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran along with the subsequent pager attacks and deaths of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and, most recently, Haniyeh’s successor, Yahya Sinwar, have deprived these forces of some of their most experienced leaders. Additionally, Israeli operations in southern Lebanon have severely weakened Hezbollah, which functions as Iran’s queen on the regional geopolitical chessboard. Reports indicate that Hezbollah’s military, which defeated Israel in the 2006 war, has been severely degraded, though not destroyed.

Should Iran abandon its allies, it risks damaging its credibility abroad, with the effect of a potentially deteriorating security environment for itself. This may explain why, on Oct. 4, Khamenei, in a rare move, delivered the Friday sermon, pledging in Arabic continued support for the Axis of Resistance and reaffirming Iran’s commitment to the Palestinian cause. Either scenario is risky for Iran.

In response to these external developments, since early 2024 Iranian officials have shifted their discourse around the issue of nuclear weaponization. In February, Ali Akbar Salehi, the former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, likened Iran’s nuclear capability to assembling a car: “Imagine what a car needs—it requires a chassis, an engine, a steering wheel, a gearbox. You’re asking if we’ve made the gearbox; I say yes. Have we made the engine? Yes, but each component has its own function.” While this analogy underscores Iran’s technical readiness, previously taboo discussions about weaponization have become more explicit amid changing regional dynamics.

In October, 39 Iranian parliament members sent a letter to the Supreme National Security Council urging a reassessment of Iran’s defense doctrine regarding nuclear weapons. Adding to the escalating rhetoric, Kamal Kharazi, a former foreign minister and current advisor to Khamenei, warned that Iran’s nuclear stance could shift. “We now have the technical capabilities necessary to produce nuclear weapons. … Only the supreme leader’s fatwa [against nuclear weapons] currently prohibits it,” he cautioned in early November. “If the survival of Iran comes under serious threat, we reserve the right to reconsider.” The current debate over Iran’s defense posture may genuinely stem from heightened security concerns amid regional threats, but it could also be a strategic ploy by Iranians to pressure the United States into restraining Israel’s aggressive actions. After all, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghch reiterated last week that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons.

Crossing the nuclear threshold would, in theory, give Iran the ultimate tool of deterrence, enhancing its regional influence. It could further enable Iran to match Israel’s nuclear arsenal in the region. This path is fraught with danger, though, as it risks provoking a potential conflict with the United States and Israel. Iran’s nuclear breakout time is currently estimated at one to two weeks, but if Tehran opts to dash for a bomb, it would likely need several months to a year to produce a usable nuclear weapon. During this period of vulnerability, Iran would be highly exposed to preventive strikes, particularly from the United States or Israel. Several U.S. presidents, both Democratic and Republican, have stated that the use of the military to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is on the table. Given Iran’s past intelligence lapses, any covert attempt to rapidly develop a bomb would likely be detected, prompting swift military intervention. In essence, any covert attempt at weaponization could be seen as an open invitation for foreign intervention, which could dissuade Iran from fully crossing the nuclear finish line. This scenario mirrors the decision Iran made in 2003, when fears of a U.S. invasion prompted it to halt its clandestine nuclear activities.

Iran is currently facing a predicament over its most prized national achievement: nuclear threshold status. While domestic pressure to develop a nuclear weapon is ostensibly growing, this move remains unlikely due to the considerable risks associated with weaponization. Furthermore, while Hezbollah’s leadership has been decapitated and its military strength has been weakened, it is not nearly close to a collapse. In the absence of a nuclear agreement to limit its program, the most plausible scenario is that Iran will continue edging closer to nuclear capability without fully crossing the threshold. This approach allows Iran to avoid preventive strikes while reducing the time required to assemble a weapon if an existential threat emerges, as only an acute security threat would likely push Iran to take the final step toward nuclear weapons. Such a crisis would include an attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure or the total collapse of Hezbollah.

[libertariantaoist]

News Roundup 6/11/2023 | The Libertarian Institute

Here is your daily roundup of today's news:

News Roundup 6/11/2023

by Kyle Anzalone

US News 

A group of Republican senators on Thursday introduced a bill to repeal the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was passed in the wake of the September 11th attacks and is still being used to justify wars today. AWC

Russia

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Thursday that Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian attack in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast as Western media outlets are reporting Ukraine’s counteroffensive has officially begun. AWC

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said Thursday that Ukraine was ready to sign a peace deal with Russia in the early days of the war but gave up on negotiations due to US pressure. AWC

Two recent reports have uncovered billions in trade between members of the North Atlantic alliance and Russia since the Kremlin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year. The Institute

The Department of Defense announced on Friday it will purchase $2.1 billion in weapons for Ukraine, including munitions for Patriot and Hawk air defense systems. AWC

Stockholm plans to send a “signal to Russia” by allowing NATO troop deployments in Sweden before the country is admitted into the alliance, according to top officials. Turkey is holding up Sweden’s bid to join the bloc. AWC

As part of a “deepening” military partnership between Iran and Russia amid the war in Ukraine, US intelligence officials believe Tehran is assisting Moscow in building a drone manufacturing plant that may be operational next year, the White House said on Friday. American officials claim hundreds of Iranian drones were transported to Russia via the Caspian Sea last month. AWC

China

The Pentagon on Thursday dismissed a report from The Wall Street Journal that claimed Beijing and Havana have reached an agreement in principle on China establishing a secret spy facility in Cuba. AWC

The US, Japan, and Taiwan are preparing to share real-time data from naval surveillance drones in a move sure to anger China, Financial Times reported on Thursday. AWC

Middle East

According to a report from Middle East Eye, the US and Iran are near a deal that would reduce Iran’s uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief, although it’s not certain that a final agreement will be reached. AWC

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Secretary of State Antony Blinken that no deal the US makes with Iran would prevent Israel from attacking the country over its nuclear program. The Institute

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