Group items tagged

The primary fear-mongering agenda item for the National Security and Surveillance State industry is now cyberwarfare

as is usually true when it comes to Washington warnings about the evils of Others — this is pure projection

Administration defenders will undoubtedly insist that unleashing cyber warfare was all necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and impeding an Israeli attack — even though the U.S. Government acknowledges there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons; Iran has the absolute right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, and it is far from clear that this virus meaningfully impeded Iran’s nuclear program. But no matter: once a Manichean storyline is implanted (Evil Iran v. Virtuous America), all acts of aggression by the super-hero against the villain are inherently justified.

Israeli elections are between parties and not between people, so there is not a great deal of significance to polls showing Netanyahu as the preferred candidate for the premiership

Not a single Israeli leader will make the signing of a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians his or her flagship policy. Each believes that a majority of the public supports an agreement along the lines of the Clinton Parameters or the Geneva Accord -- but at the same time, all believe that such an agreement is impossible under current circumstances.

Netanyahu's chances of winning are very good. But if Bibi's opponents shift the conversation to the burning issue of our time -- the possibility of a unilateral strike by Israel on Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities in the next few months -- that could all change.

Among measures Iran is taking since the interim agreement took effect on January 20 is the dilution of its stock of higher-enriched uranium to a fissile concentration less suitable for any attempt to fuel an atomic bomb.Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), indicated that Iran had made sufficient progress in this regard to receive a scheduled March 1 installment of $450 million out of a total of $4.2 billion in previously blocked overseas funds.

Separately, the IAEA is investigating suspicions - largely believed to be based on intelligence provided by Western states and Israel - that Iran has researched how to construct an atomic bomb, a charge Tehran denies. Iran says it is Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal that threatens Middle East peace.

Amano said 17 IAEA member states had so far expressed interest in contributing extra-budgetary funds to help finance the IAEA's extra workload in monitoring the implementation of the Geneva agreement in Iran, but that more was needed. "We are still short of some €1.6 million ($2.21 million)," Amano said.The U.N. agency said in January it needed about 5.5 million euros from member states to pay for its increased activities in Iran. This would cover more inspectors sent to Iran and the purchase of specialized surveillance-related equipment.

an “extraordinarily difficult process”

Washington would still like to begin bilateral talks with Iran on a broader relationship, including trade and Tehran’s support for Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi insurgent and terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Washington buzzed over a quiet visit on Wednesday by the Iranian foreign minister to the unofficial embassy in Washington, the first trip to the capital by an Iranian of that rank in a decade.

"Under pressure of a few superficially powerful countries ... the International Atomic Energy Agency passed an illegal resolution against the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday

Ahmadinejad said Iran would enrich its own uranium up to 20 per cent purity to be used as nuclear fuel.

The resolution was the first against Iran in almost four years.

Washington has denied any involvement

Amiri, who is said to be a researcher at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, disappeared after he went on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June.

His family in Tehran said he was closely questioned by Saudi police at the airport and later called his wife from Medina, in Saudi Arabia, before apparently vanishing.

"Iran informed the Director General today that it is considering the proposal in depth and in a favourable light, but needs time until the middle of next week to provide a response," the IAEA said in a statement.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said: "We hope that they will next week provide a positive response."

He added that "obviously we would have preferred to have a response today [Friday]. We approach this with a sense of urgency".

A team from the UN's nuclear watchdog has inspected a previously secret uranium enrichment plant in Iran, Iranian officials and media have said.

The inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency are expected to visit the facility, near the holy city of Qom, again over the next two days.

Sunday's inspection was the first time monitors from the IAEA had been allowed access to Iran's second enrichment facility, which is being built into a mountainside 160km (100 miles) south of Tehran.

Israelis know better than anyone else that the trick to developing a nuclear weapon as a small power is to drag out the process of diplomacy and inspections long enough to produce sufficient quantities of fissionable material. Israel should know: in the 1960s, it deliberately misled U.S. inspectors and repeatedly delayed site visits, providing the time to construct its Dimona reactor and reprocess enough plutonium to build a bomb. North Korea has followed a similar path, with similar results. And now, Israel suspects, Iran is doing the same, only with highly enriched uranium instead of plutonium.

Although many analysts question the rationality of the Iranian regime, it is in fact fairly conservative in its foreign policy. Iran has two long-range goals, achieving regional hegemony and spreading fundamentalist Islam, neither of which will be achieved if Iran initiates a nuclear exchange with Israel.

Israel fears that Iran’s nuclear ambitions could undermine its qualitative superiority of arms and its consistent ability to inflict disproportionate casualties on adversaries -- the cornerstones of Israel’s defense strategy.

Over three days in May 2017, the Italian secret service—masquerading as a humanitarian nongovernmental organization—summoned to Rome two dozen delegates from the southern edge of the Sahara desert. The pretext was to promote a peace deal for their war-torn region; the real goal was to bring them on board with an Italian plan to curb migration.

the pitfalls of a foreign policy that conflates peace and development with migration control

The International Organization for Migration manages one key pillar of the EU’s migration policy in Libya, namely the so-called voluntary repatriation of stranded migrants.

On Jan. 26, the day Al-Monitor ran an article describing hints of a military option against Iran that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was directing at the new US administration, the chief of the Israel Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, delivered his annual address at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. His remarks shocked Israel’s political-defense establishment and likely reverberated in Washington and Tehran. Contrary to the position taken by two of Kochavi’s predecessors, Lt. Gen. (res.) Benny Gantz and Lt. Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi, who currently serve as Israel’s ministers of defense and foreign affairs, respectively, Kochavi launched a direct attack on the Barack Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and delivered thinly veiled hints to the new Democratic administration.

“A return to the 2015 nuclear agreement, or even if it is a similar accord with several improvements, is bad and wrong from an operational and strategic point of view. Operationally, because it would enable Iran to enrich quantities of uranium, develop centrifuges to the point of a nuclear breakout. Strategically, it will drag the Middle East into a nuclear race,”

The timing of his remarks could not have been more sensitive, two days before the first working visit to Israel by US CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie and just one week after the Joe Biden administration took office. Kochavi did not give the Americans the usual 100 days of grace and did not leave the messaging to the politicians.

The Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a series of covert cyber operations against Iran and other targets since winning a secret victory in 2018 when President Trump signed what amounts to a sweeping authorization for such activities

The secret authorization, known as a presidential finding, gives the spy agency more freedom in both the kinds of operations it conducts and who it targets, undoing many restrictions that had been in place under prior administrations

Unlike previous presidential findings that have focused on a specific foreign policy objective or outcome — such as preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power — this directive, driven by the National Security Council and crafted by the CIA, focuses more broadly on a capability: covert action in cyberspace.  

A former Israeli defense official told Insider it was common knowledge that at least some of the latest attacks in Iran were done by Israeli intelligence.

An EU official also told Insider that they fear Israel is planning to provoke Iran into military confrontation "while Trump remains in office."

Israel is involved in an extended campaign to pressure or damage Iran before President Donald Trump could be voted out in the November election, a former Israeli defense official and a current EU intelligence official have told Insider.

Iran’s foreign minister said that his country is ready to work with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve questions about uranium found at three undeclared sites, as long as the agency addresses these questions “technically,” rather than politically

Once there is agreement on a return to the nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran will be ready to grant access to the IAEA “beyond safeguards,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

“We are not afraid of having face-to-face talks with the United States, but we should feel that it is going to be a game changer, that there is going to be some kind of gain for us.”  “If the Americans are serious, and they are willing to show their willingness and desire to get back to the JCPOA, these [indirect] messages will suffice."