The Outcome: "Get Ready for the Washington-Tehran Tango"
Benjamin Netanyahu is also worried because the comming tango, he has warned President Barack Obama that if Washington does not quickly find a way to shut down Iran's nuclear program, Israel will.
UP
The Telegraph
""We have announced our readiness to train the Afghan police," Esmaeel Ahmadi-Moghadam, Iran's national police chief. But he added that there had been no talks with Nato on "any direct co-operation with foreign forces in Afghanistan".
Tehran's offer follows US overtures to Iran as it tries to include Afghanistan's powerful neighbour in a new White House strategy to defeat the country's insurgency......."
US and Israel to carry out joint drills to test ballistic missile systems
The exercise, code named 'Juniper Cobra', will test three different missile anti-missile systems, including an upgraded version of Israel's arrow interceptor, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday.
Designed and constructed via American funding for Israel, the Arrow ABM system is a multi-billion dollar development program, which intercepts targets high in the stratosphere.
Two other American-made anti-missile systems, namely the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and the ship-based Aegis combat system, are also to be tested during the war games.
Like the arrow, THAAD intercepts ballistic missiles in the high stratosphere but has the capability to intercept targets both in and coming from the outer reaches of outer space.
The Aegis combat system is one of the most advanced and capable defense systems currently in use. It can simultaneously detect, track and destroy a multitude of targets.
While a date has not been publicized for the maneuvers, they are likely to happen during the current year.
During the past five years, the White House of former US president George W. Bush has ordered similar military exercises but the recent Juniper Cobra exercise will be the "most complex and extensive yet", The Jerusalem Post revealed.
Quoting unnamed senior Israeli officials, the newspaper said the exercise meant "to enable interoperability between Israeli and American BMD systems ... in the event of a conflict with Iran."
Tel Aviv has intensified its preparations for a war against Iran since Benjamin Netanyahu took power and became the Israeli prime minister.
Israel, the sole possessor of a nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, accuses Tehran of making efforts to build a nuclear bomb and threatens Iran with a military strike should the country continue uranium enrichment.
Echelons in Tel Aviv have voiced concern that the launch of air strikes against the Iranian nuclear infrastructure may trigger a war of raining missiles.
The preparations come at a time that the UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran and has conceded that the country enriches uranium to a level of around 5 percent -- consistent with the development of a nuclear power plant.
Nuclear weapons production requires a rate of over 90 percent.
Source
Iran willing to build new relationship with US
AP, here"...The speech by hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took an unusually conciliatory tone at a time when President Barack Obama's administration has signaled it wants to reach out to Iran and start a dialogue. It was the latest indication that both countries are searching for a formula to begin talks, though there have been no concrete breakthroughs yet.
"Today we are preparing a new package. Once it becomes ready, we will present that package (to you)," the president said. "It is a package that constitutes peace and justice throughout the globe and also respects other nations' rights." He did not give any indication as to what Iran would propose.He was responding to the U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia whose representatives said last week that they will invite Iran for new talks over its nuclear program.Ahmadinejad boasted that Iran's resistance and progress in nuclear technology has forced Washington to retreat from its position."You know well that today you are suffering from weaknesses. You have no choice. You can't make any progress through bullying policies. I advise you to change and correct your tone and respect other nations' rights," he said."
"...an internal defeat for Denis Ross--or maybe just an acknowledgment that Iran holds most of the cards here..."
"It's no great surprise that the Obama administration, is considering letting Iran continue to enrich uranium even as potential talks begin over its nuclear program. Why? Maybe because there aren't a lot of other options. Even in 2006, when Iran's program was far less advanced, and Condoleezza Rice carefully planned out an offer for a bold new level of US-Iranian engagement--she worked at home through Easter weekend personally devising an elaborate, color-coded action plan, according to David Sanger's The Inheritance--Tehran more or less ignored the idea because it involved the suspension of enrichment. In 2007 Iran's foreign minister declared calls for an enrichment halt "illegal and illegitimate," and said his country would only talk without American preconditions.
The trouble is, unless and until the U.S. can win tougher sanctions against Iran, we simply lack the leverage to be making demands. Writing in TNR a year ago, Obama's point man on Iran, Dennis Ross, made this very point:
America's readiness to talk to Iran without conditions provides leverage with those who want it to join the negotiations with the Iranians. In particular, the Europeans have been convinced, rightly or wrongly, that a deal with the Iranians on the nuclear issue is possible, but only if the United States is also at the table. It is the United States, they believe, that can provide what the Iranians most want in terms of full acceptance of the regime, security assurances, and an end to sanctions and calls for economic boycotts. Given this view, the next administration must go quietly to the British, French and Germans and make clear that while it is ready to drop the precondition on Iranian suspension of enrichment, join the talks directly, and put a credible comprehensive proposal on the table, it cannot do so until they agree to ratchet up the pressure on Iran at the same time. Europeans would thus need to agree on E.U.-wide sanctions that cut off investment in the Iranian oil and natural gas sectors, commerce with Iranian banks, and all credit guarantees to their companies doing business in Iran.
Interestingly, the precondition was dropped before the EU stepped up the pressure. I don't know if that represents an internal defeat for Ross--or maybe just an acknowledgment that Iran holds most of the cards here."
No comments:
Post a Comment