Skip to main content

Home/ Geopolitics Weekly/ Group items tagged Iran

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Pedro Gonçalves

Canada uses G8 summit to touch Iran - 0 views

  • Canada is reportedly to use the upcoming Group of Eight summit to push fellow industrialized nations to forge a unified position on Iran's nuclear program. Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper is to take the issue to the G8 summit in a bid to "come out with a coherent position to deal" with Tehran, Dimitri Soudas -- a spokesman for the premier -- said on Tuesday.
  • The spokesman went on to label the Islamic Republic as an "extremely dangerous" serious threat", which possesses "a nuclear proliferation program with a clear objective".
Pedro Gonçalves

SPIEGEL Interview with Henry Kissinger: 'Obama Is Like a Chess Player' - SPIEGEL ONLINE... - 0 views

  • SPIEGEL: Do you think it was helpful for Obama to deliver a speech to the Islamic world in Cairo? Or has he created a lot of illusions about what politics can deliver? Kissinger: Obama is like a chess player who is playing simultaneous chess and has opened his game with an unusual opening. Now he's got to play his hand as he plays his various counterparts. We haven't gotten beyond the opening game move yet. I have no quarrel with the opening move.
  • Kissinger: It is also too early to say that. If what he wants to do is convey to the Islamic world that America has an open attitude to dialogue and is not determined on physical confrontation as its only strategy, then it can play a very useful role. If it were to be continued on the belief that every crisis can be managed by a philosophical speech, then he will run into Wilsonian problems.
  • SPIEGEL: Obama did not only hold a speech. At the same time, he placed pressure on Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and to recognize an independent Palestinian state. Kissinger: The outcome can only be a two-state solution, and there seems to be substantial agreement on the borders of such a state.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Kissinger: The important thing after military victory is to deal with the defeated nation in a generous way. SPIEGEL: And with this you mean not to subdue the defeated nation? Kissinger: You can either weaken a defeated nation to a point where its convictions no longer matter and you can impose anything you wish on it, or you have to bring it back into the international system. From the point of view from Versailles, the treaty was too lenient with respect to holding Germany down, and it was too tough to bring Germany into the new system. So it failed on both grounds.
  • SPIEGEL: What would a wise winner do? Kissinger: A wise victor will attempt to bring the defeated nation into the international system. A wise negotiator will try to find a basis on which the agreement will want to be maintained. When one reaches a point where neither of these possibilities exist, then one has to go either to increase pressure or to isolation of the adversary or maybe do both.
  • SPIEGEL: Were the Western countries wise in respect to their dealings with the former Soviet Union after their implosion? Kissinger: There was too much triumphalism on the western side. There was too much description of the Soviets as defeated in a Cold War and maybe a certain amount of arrogance. SPIEGEL: Not only towards Russia? Kissinger: In other situations as well.
  • Iran is a relatively weak and small country that has inherent limits to its capabilities. The relationship of China with the rest of the world is a lot more important in historic terms than the Iranian issues by themselves.
Pedro Gonçalves

SPIEGEL Interview with Henry Kissinger: 'Obama Is Like a Chess Player' - SPIEGEL ONLINE... - 0 views

  • Kissinger: The belief in democracy as a universal remedy regularly reappears in American foreign policy. Its most recent appearance came with the so-called neocons in the Bush administration. Actually, Obama is much closer to a realistic policy on this issue than Bush was.
  • Kissinger: Cynics treat values as equivalent and instrumental. Statesmen base practical decisions on moral convictions. It is always easy to divide the world into idealists and power-oriented people. The idealists are presumed to be the noble people, and the power-oriented people are the ones that cause all the world's trouble. But I believe more suffering has been caused by prophets than by statesmen. For me, a sensible definition of realpolitik is to say there are objective circumstances without which foreign policy cannot be conducted. To try to deal with the fate of nations without looking at the circumstances with which they have to deal is escapism. The art of good foreign policy is to understand and to take into consideration the values of a society, to realize them at the outer limit of the possible.
  • Kissinger: I see two possibilities. We will either come to an understanding with Iran, or we will clash. As a democratic society we cannot justify the clash to our own people unless we can show that we have made a serious effort to avoid it. By that, I don't mean that we have to make every concession they demand, but we are obligated to put forward ideas the American people can support.The upheaval in Teheran must run its course before these possibilities can be explored.
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran deploys fresh warships to Gulf of Aden - 0 views

  • The Iranian Navy has deployed two warships to the Gulf of Aden to help preserve shipping security in the pirate-infested waters. Iran's Deputy Naval Commander, Gholam-Reza Khadem, said Monday that the dispatched warships are set to replace aging vessels and protect Iranian merchant containers and oil tankers from Somali pirates in the volatile Gulf of Aden.
Pedro Gonçalves

France 24 | Parliament approves 18 cabinet picks, including defence minister | France 24 - 0 views

  • The three nominees who were rejected were the proposed energy, welfare and education ministers. Of three nominated women ministers, only Health Minister Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi was approved. She will become the Islamic Republic's first female minister.
  • Crucially for Ahmadinejad, heavyweight nominees including the oil, defence, intelligence, interior, economy and foreign ministers were all approved by MPs. The nomination of Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi has been condemned by Argentina, which accuses him of involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish centre that killed 85 people. Tehran has repeatedly denied any link to the attack. He received the highest number of votes in favour of all nominees, 227 out of 286 members of parliament present.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | 'Israeli oranges' faked in China - 0 views

  • It has now been revealed the fruit, a type of orange-grapefruit hybrid marketed as Jaffa Sweetie, were not Israeli in the first place. The Sweeties were brought to Iran from China, where faking the origin of goods is a common practice.
Argos Media

Iraq Resists Pleas by U.S. to Placate Hussein's Party - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • On April 18, American and British officials from a secretive unit called the Force Strategic Engagement Cell flew to Jordan to try to persuade one of Saddam Hussein’s top generals — the commander of the final defense of Baghdad in 2003 — to return home to resume efforts to make peace with the new Iraq.
  • But the Iraqi commander, Lt. Gen. Raad Majid al-Hamdani, rebuffed them. After a year of halting talks mediated by the Americans, he said, he concluded that Iraq’s leader, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, simply was not interested in reconciliation.
  • The American appeal — described by General Hamdani and not previously reported — illustrates what could become one of the biggest obstacles to stability in Iraq. Mr. Maliki’s pledges to reconcile with some of the most ardent opponents of his government have given way to what some say is a hardening sectarianism that threatens to stoke already simmering political tensions and rising anger over a recent spate of bombings aimed at Shiites.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • On March 28, Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-led government arrested a prominent Sunni leader on charges of heading a secret armed wing of Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party. A week later, the prime minister accused Baathists of orchestrating car bombings that killed more than 40 people. On Monday, he lashed out again, saying the Baath Party was “filled with hate from head to toe.”
  • Mr. Maliki’s earlier effort to reunite the country was one of Washington’s primary benchmarks for measuring political progress in Iraq. The goal was to separate Baathist opponents of the government who were considered more willing to trade violence for political power from intractable extremists, many of them religious. Early last year, under intense American pressure, Mr. Maliki pushed through Parliament a law to ease restrictions on the return of Baath Party members to public life. But 15 months later, the law has yet to be put into effect.
  • Mr. Maliki’s retreat risks polarizing Iraqis again and eroding hard-fought security gains. One hundred sixty people died in bombings on Thursday and Friday alone. There is no evidence that Baathists were involved, but fears are rising that they and jihadi insurgents are increasingly cooperating in areas, Baghdad especially, that have been largely quiet over the last year.
  • The prime minister’s return to a hard line appears to be motivated by a number of factors. Despite Mr. Maliki’s success in provincial elections in January and in projecting himself as a strong nonsectarian leader, his Dawa Party recognizes that it still needs his Shiite partners to govern. And his Shiite rivals, many of whom are close to Iran, have accused him of recently orchestrating a wholesale return of Baathists to bolster his standing with the Sunni minority. Mr. Maliki, political experts say, cannot afford to alienate fellow Shiites ahead of the general elections in December.
  • Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite politician who led the push six years ago to purge Iraq of the Baath Party, said that despite Mr. Maliki’s pragmatic efforts to court Sunni support, the prime minister retained a visceral hatred for everything associated with the Baath Party and the brutal former regime. Mr. Maliki is also suspicious of bringing back some of the Sunni old guard, which Mr. Chalabi says is part of an American plan “to stiffen Iraq into opposing Iran and help integrate Iraq back into the Arab fold.”
  • From Washington’s point of view, reconciliation with approachable Baathists would isolate extremists like Mr. Douri’s followers. There lies the fundamental difference with the Iraqi side, which is shackled by its fears. “The mere ideas of the Baath Party are dangerous because they are about conspiracies, infiltration and coups,” Kamal al-Saedi, a member of Parliament and one of Mr. Maliki’s partisans on the government’s reconciliation committee, said Wednesday.
  • Mr. Maliki’s adviser for reconciliation, Mohammed Salman al-Saady, said he knew nothing of those promises, but he acknowledged that Mr. Maliki’s government had “fundamental differences” with Washington over how far to extend reconciliation.
  • Mr. Saady said the talks with General Hamdani stalled because many of his demands were against government policy. “According to the Constitution, holding negotiations with the Baath Party is a red line that cannot be crossed,” Mr. Saady said. But he underscored the government’s readiness to engage Baathists who renounced their party affiliation and accepted accountability for crimes they might have committed.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israeli oranges 'on sale in Iran' - 0 views

  • Fears that an Iranian ban on imports from its arch foe Israel was flouted by the sale of Jaffa oranges have sparked an inquiry in Tehran, reports say. City authorities asked the judiciary to take action after the Israeli fruit was allegedly imported in boxes marked as Chinese, local media report.
  • City authorities asked the judiciary to take action after the Israeli fruit was allegedly imported in boxes marked as Chinese, local media report.
Argos Media

SPIEGEL Interview with Iranian President Ahmadinejad: 'We Are Neither Obstinate nor Gul... - 0 views

  • Is that what former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said to you when you met with him here in Tehran in February? Ahmadinejad: Yes, he said it, as well.
  • We now hope to see concrete steps. This is good for everyone, but it is especially beneficial to the United States because the American position in the world is not exactly a good one. No one places any trust in the words of the Americans.
  • During my more than three years in office, I have visited more than 60 countries, where I was received with great affection by both the people on the street and those in the government. We have the support of 118 countries in the Non-Aligned Movement
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • I agree that our reputation with the American government and some European governments is not positive. But that's their problem. All peoples are fed up with the American government.
  • The Afghan government should have been given more responsibility in the last seven years. President Hamid Karzai said to me once: They don't allow us to do our work.
  • Are you seriously insisting on an American withdrawal from the region? Ahmadinejad: One has to have a plan, of course. A withdrawal can only be one of several measures. It must be accompanied by other, simultaneous actions, such as strengthening regional government. Do you know that narcotics production has grown fivefold under the NATO command in Afghanistan?
  • Ahmadinejad: Look, more than $250 billion (€190 billion) has been spent on the military campaign in Afghanistan to date. With a population of 30 million, that comes to more than $8,000 a person, or close to $42,000 for an average family of five. Factories and roads could have been built, universities established and fields cultivated for the Afghan people. If that had happened, would there have been any room left for terrorists? One has to address the root of the problem, not proceed against its branches. The solution for Afghanistan is not military, but humanitarian.
  • We have lost more than 3,300 people in the fight against drug smuggling. Our police force made these sacrifices while guarding our 1,000-kilometer border with Afghanistan.
  • Naturally, we cannot expect to see problems that have arisen over more than half a century resolved in only a few days. We are neither obstinate nor gullible. We are realists. The important thing is the determination to bring about improvements. If you change the atmosphere, solutions can be found.
  • the Afghan people have close historical ties to Iran. More than 3 million Afghan citizens live in our country
  • Ahmadinejad: We believe that the Iraqi people are capable of providing for their own security. The Iraqi people have a civilization that goes back more than 1,000 years. We will support whatever the Iraqis decide to do and which form of government they choose. A sovereign, united and strong Iraq is beneficial for everyone. We would welcome that.
  • Ahmadinejad: We pay no attention to the reports of American intelligence services.
Argos Media

Barack Obama's new offensive against nuclear weapons | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

  • "In Prague, I will lay out an agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons," Obama said yesterday after arriving in continental Europe for the first time as president
  • "The spread of nuclear weapons or the theft of nuclear material could lead to the extermination of any city on the planet," he warned, adding that suspected rogue nuclear states, such as North Korea or Iran, may only be persuaded to abandon their quests if the big nuclear powers set an example.
  • "We can't reduce the threat of a nuclear weapon going off unless those that possess the most nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia, take serious steps to reduce our stockpiles," Obama said. "So we want to pursue that vigorously in the years ahead."
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • At Obama's first meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, in London on Wednesday, both agreed on fast-track negotiations to slash their nuclear stockpiles by about a third from the end of this year
  • Obama would use the speech to urge the US Senate to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty proscribing nuclear bomb trials, a treaty already endorsed by the other main nuclear powers, Russia, Britain, and France. The US has about 10,000 of the world's estimated 24,000 nuclear weapons, and Russia 13,000.
  • John Hutton, the defence secretary, told the Guardian Britain could despatch up to 1,000 more soldiers this summer, and Nato officials were confident that Europeans would supply up to a further 3,000.
  • Obama made it plain yesterday that the chances of a better transatlantic relationship hinged on European readiness to "step up to the plate" in Afghanistan and to "share the burden" for his surge.
  • "It is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, al-Qaida is still a threat," Obama said. "I've come to Europe this week to renew our partnership ... America is changing but it cannot be America alone that changes." He warned that the risk of an al-Qaida attack was higher in Europe than in the US.
  • "I don't think the hard end of the security mission is being properly shared, and that is the view of many others including the president," said Hutton. "Europe has got to see al-Qaida is every bit a direct threat to Europe and the UK, as it is to the US." He said Nato could no longer use its dislike of Bush to avoid a commitment in Afghanistan.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Netanyahu sworn in as Israeli PM - 0 views

  • He said he would negotiate with the Palestinians but made no reference to a two-state solution to the conflict.
  • The new cabinet is the largest in Israel's political history. It combines the centre-right, centre-left and far-right parties, with hard-liner Avigdor Lieberman confirmed as foreign minister and Labour veteran Ehud Barak as minister of defence. The cabinet is so big, the government's meeting table has had to be extended to accommodate all the members.
  • "I am telling the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, if you really want peace, it is possible to reach peace," he said. "We do not want to govern another people. We do not want to exercise our power over the Palestinians."
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Mr Netanyahu has said in the past that he sees no need for the Palestinians to have full separate statehood.
  • Analysts say the nuclear ambitions of Iran are likely to top the new cabinet's security agenda. In an apparent reference to that effect, Mr Netanyahu said the biggest threat to Israel and the world came from "the possibility of a radical regime armed with nuclear weapons". He further stressed the issue in comments given to a US magazine shortly before he was sworn in. "You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs," he said , in reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's belief in the imminent return of a Shia Islamic messianic figure, the Mehdi.
Argos Media

Foreign Policy: The Axis of Upheaval - 0 views

  • Iran, meanwhile, continues to support both Hamas and its Shiite counterpart in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and to pursue an alleged nuclear weapons program that Israelis legitimately see as a threat to their very existence.
  • No one can say for sure what will happen next within Tehran’s complex political system, but it is likely that the radical faction around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be strengthened by the Israeli onslaught in Gaza. Economically, however, Iran is in a hole that will only deepen as oil prices fall further. Strategically, the country risks disaster by proceeding with its nuclear program, because even a purely Israeli air offensive would be hugely disruptive. All this risk ought to point in the direction of conciliation, even accommodation, with the United States. But with presidential elections in June, Ahmadinejad has little incentive to be moderate.
  • The democratic governments in Kabul and Islamabad are two of the weakest anywhere. Among the biggest risks the world faces this year is that one or both will break down amid escalating violence. Once again, the economic crisis is playing a crucial role. Pakistan’s small but politically powerful middle class has been slammed by the collapse of the country’s stock market. Meanwhile, a rising proportion of the country’s huge population of young men are staring unemployment in the face. It is not a recipe for political stability.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • This club is anything but exclusive. Candidate members include Indonesia, Thailand, and Turkey, where there are already signs that the economic crisis is exacerbating domestic political conflicts. And let us not forget the plague of piracy in Somalia, the renewed civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the continuing violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, and the heart of darkness that is Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe. The axis of upheaval has many members. And it’s a fairly safe bet that the roster will grow even longer this year.
  • The problem is that, as in the 1930s, most countries are looking inward, grappling with the domestic consequences of the economic crisis and paying little attention to the wider world crisis. This is true even of the United States, which is now so preoccupied with its own economic problems that countering global upheaval looks like an expensive luxury. With the U.S. rate of GDP growth set to contract between 2 and 3 percentage points this year, and with the official unemployment rate likely to approach 10 percent, all attention in Washington will remain focused on a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package. Caution has been thrown to the wind by both the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. The projected deficit for 2009 is already soaring above the trillion-dollar mark, more than 8 percent of GDP. Few commentators are asking what all this means for U.S. foreign policy.
  • The answer is obvious: The resources available for policing the world are certain to be reduced for the foreseeable future. That will be especially true if foreign investors start demanding higher yields on the bonds they buy from the United States or simply begin dumping dollars in exchange for other currencies.
  • Economic volatility, plus ethnic disintegration, plus an empire in decline: That combination is about the most lethal in geopolitics. We now have all three. The age of upheaval starts now.
Pedro Gonçalves

Bahrain bans all opposition rallies | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • The order, announced by the interior ministry in Manama on Tuesday, is the most-far reaching attempt to quell unrest in the Gulf kingdom since martial law was imposed last year.
  • Bahrain, where a Sunni minority rules over a Shia majority, is often described as lying on a sectarian fault line of the Arab world and on the frontline of a tense confrontation between Iran and its Gulf Arab neighbours.
  • Bahraini observers said the move appeared to reflect divisions and hesitation within the government and the lack of dialogue between it and the opposition. "The situation is stagnant and there is no horizon for a political solution," said Mansoor al-Jamri, editor of al-Wasat newspaper. "They are tightening their grip, but this is not a crackdown. That will mean mass arrests and opening the jails and taking senior people into custody."
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Bahrain's brief chapter of the Arab spring – known to activists as the "Pearl Revolution" – ended last March, when the Saudis and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council intervened to help restore order. But sporadic protests have continued and escalated in recent days.The target of the warning appeared to be the largest Shia political bloc, al-Wefaq, which has organised many marches.
  • A full crackdown on the opposition would anger the US, Britain and other western allies that have stood by the Bahraini since last year's unrest.The US has important military links with Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy's 5th Fleet, but it has also called for increased efforts at dialogue to ease the tensions.
  • Shias comprise about 70% of Bahrain's 525,000 citizens, who claim they face systematic discrimination and gerrymandering of constituency boundaries.
  • The monarchy has made a series of concessions, including giving more powers to the elected parliament, but opposition groups say the reforms do little to loosen the ruling family's hold on power. More than 50 people have been killed in Bahrain's unrest since February 2011.
Pedro Gonçalves

Tony Blair should face trial over Iraq war, says Desmond Tutu | Politics | The Observer - 0 views

  • "The then leaders of the United States and Great Britain," Tutu argues, "fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us."
  • But it is Tutu's call for Blair and Bush to face justice in The Hague that is most startling. Claiming that different standards appear to be set for prosecuting African leaders and western ones, he says the death toll during and after the Iraq conflict is sufficient on its own for Blair and Bush to be tried at the ICC."On these grounds, alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in The Hague," he says.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Obama unveils new strategy for 'leaner' US military - 0 views

  • The future will see fewer counter-insurgency battles in distant lands. It will focus much more on the capacity of America's air and naval forces to balance a competitor like China or face down an antagonist like Iran. And it will scale back America's much-heralded ability to fight two wars at once.
  • The president said the new strategy would end "long-term, nation-building with large military footprints". The Pentagon would instead pursue a national security strategy based on "smaller conventional ground forces".
  • Mr Panetta said on Thursday the review would make the US military "more agile, more flexible, ready to deploy quickly".
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The Pentagon has long debated its doctrine on being able to wage two wars simultaneously. In 2001, former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress that strategy was not working. And when the US was in fact fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the military suffered a shortage of manpower.
Pedro Gonçalves

Ship raid censure clouds Israel PM as he eyes Iran | Reuters - 0 views

  • "The decision-making process by the prime minister was carried out without any orderly, coordinated, authorised and documented staff work," said the 158-page report of the May 2010 interception of the Mavi Marmara.
  • Lindenstrauss said Israeli discussions on stopping the Mavi Marmara was largely limited to one-on-one meetings that Netanyahu held with Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.Israel's security cabinet, which the prime minister is obliged by law to consult before major military endeavours, convened only five days before the raid.Its members "were unaware of the purpose of the debate and did not have enough time to prepare for it", the report added.
  • A U.N. inquiry involving Israeli and Turkish representatives last September largely exonerated Israel's Gaza strategy and interception of the Mavi Marmara, though it faulted the navy for excessive force. Two previous internal Israeli probes, by the military and a government-named commission of inquiry, reported limited tactical and planning errors in the raid's execution.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • "The state comptroller's determination that the decision-making process was faulty does not mean the results could have been different," the Lindenstrauss report concluded."But (we) see the Turkish flotilla as an example from which we must take away lessons about the way decisions are made in future incidents - not necessarily the next flotilla."
Pedro Gonçalves

NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel | World news | The Gu... - 0 views

  • The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.
  • the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.
  • The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the intelligence sharing.The five-page memorandum, termed an agreement between the US and Israeli intelligence agencies "pertaining to the protection of US persons", repeatedly stresses the constitutional rights of Americans to privacy and the need for Israeli intelligence staff to respect these rights.But this is undermined by the disclosure that Israel is allowed to receive "raw Sigint" – signal intelligence. The memorandum says: "Raw Sigint includes, but is not limited to, unevaluated and unminimized transcripts, gists, facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence metadata and content."According to the agreement, the intelligence being shared would not be filtered in advance by NSA analysts to remove US communications. "NSA routinely sends ISNU [the Israeli Sigint National Unit] minimized and unminimized raw collection"
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • a much stricter rule was set for US government communications found in the raw intelligence. The Israelis were required to "destroy upon recognition" any communication "that is either to or from an official of the US government". Such communications included those of "officials of the executive branch (including the White House, cabinet departments, and independent agencies), the US House of Representatives and Senate (member and staff) and the US federal court system (including, but not limited to, the supreme court)".
  • Although Israel is one of America's closest allies, it is not one of the inner core of countries involved in surveillance sharing with the US - Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. This group is collectively known as Five Eyes.
  • In the top-secret 2013 intelligence community budget request, details of which were disclosed by the Washington Post, Israel is identified alongside Iran and China as a target for US cyberattacks.
  • another report, marked top secret and dated September 2007, states that the relationship, while central to US strategy, has become overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of Israel.
  • In another top-secret document seen by the Guardian, dated 2008, a senior NSA official points out that Israel aggressively spies on the US. "On the one hand, the Israelis are extraordinarily good Sigint partners for us, but on the other, they target us to learn our positions on Middle East problems," the official says. "A NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] ranked them as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US."
« First ‹ Previous 361 - 380 of 439 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page