On IranBOTH SIDES RACHET UP WAR RHETORICHizbullah Leader: US Declared War!Bolton: Strike Iran Now!

by Mondoreb


[photo: Reuters]


[photo:AP]

Both sides in the increasingly tense US-Iran standoff racheted up the rhetoric Sunday. On the Iranian side, a Hizbullah spiritual leader said that the U.S. Senate has "declared war on Iran". On the U.S. side, former UN ambassador John Bolton said that time is about up on all but the military option.

From YnetNews:
"The declaration of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group is a declaration of war," Sheik Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, Hizbullah's spiritual leader, said Sunday in response to a Senate resolution on Wednesday calling on the State Department to include the dominant branch in Iran's army on its list of terrorist organization.

"The American Senate's decision to include the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which are an integral part of the Iranian army, as a terrorist organization, amounts to a declaration of war and so does the Senate's daring decision to vote in favor of a resolution to divide Iraq," Fadlallah said.

Of course, Fadlallah made the usual charge that anyone with an anti-Iranian view is getting a regular check from the Zionist Entity.

"The American Congress is pretending to be trying to change the attitude of this administration but in fact they are working together and are towing the line of the Zionist lobby to widen the scope of American aggression in the region."

Meanwhile, speaking in front of Conservatives in England, Bolton lamented the lack of choices on the thorny Iran-US problem, but stated that the military option could be the only one left.

From AP via YnetNews
Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton drew cheers from British Conservatives on Sunday, saying that diplomacy had failed to halt Iran's nuclear program and urging Washington to consider military action.

Bolton, who has long advocated a tougher line on dealing with Tehran, told a fringe meeting at Britain's main opposition Conservative Party's annual conference that time was running out to halt Iran's alleged weapons ambitions.

"Life is about choices, and we are very close to the point where we have to make that choice on military force," Bolton told delegates in the northern coastal holiday town of Blackpool.

Unlike the American Left, Bolton realizes that when you take the military options off the table, the other options become a lot less serious to the other side. When the anti-war media attacks military options, they actually become much more likely to happen. As Iran discounts the seriousness of America to go to war to protect it's interests, it also discounts other the choices it may make.

As another from UN ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick (author of Making War to Keep the Peace) once said,"We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.
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War with IranUS AIR FORCE SECRET TEAM PLANS FOR STRIKE AT IRAN

[graphic by RidesAPaleHorse]
by Mondoreb

"And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet."
Matthew 24:6 King James Bible.

Tensions rising, arms in Afghanistan from Iran seized, and now--news of a secret U.S. Air Force team preparing a strike against Iran. Another of the rumors of war certainly, but this rumor supplies names, dates, places and detailed plans of a 'Project Checkmate'.

Sarah Baxter, The Sunday Times, via The Iranpressnews
THE United States Air Force has set up a highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with “fighting the next war” as tensions rise with Iran.

Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June.

The article goes on: Detailed contingency planning for a possible attack on Iran has been carried out for more than two years by Centcom (US central command), according to defence sources.

It is led by Brigadier-General Lawrence “Stutz” Stutzriem, who is considered one of the brightest air force generals. He is assisted by Dr Lani Kass, a former Israeli military officer and expert on cyberwarfare.

In a free society, it's hard to keep a secret. And irregardless of ravings on the Left about the impending demise of the American Republic, the United States is still a free society. News of Project Checkmate is proof of this, should any be needed. A "secret project" written up in one of the world's largest papers is a project that isn't very secret.

The U.S. military is preparing for what may possibly be a war in the very near future. It's what they're expected to do. The press digs to uncover news, and these days, even news that may prove detrimental to a nation's defense. It's what they're expected to do. The anti-war bed-wetters scream that America is Nazi Nation. And that's what we've come to expect them to do.
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Prince Reza Pahlavi of Iran's Plan:TIPTOE THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE U.S.-IRANIAN MINE FIELD

[graphic by Iranian.com]by Mondoreb

Some on the Right suggest, "Bomb Iran!". Anti-war Leftists reply, "Give peace a chance, and anyway, America is evil!" Prince Reza Pahlavi of Iran spoke of another solution to the nagging problem of a nuclear Islamic Republic.

Reza Bayegan, in IranPressNews:
Last week Prince Reza Pahlavi of Iran who lives in exile from his homeland once again outlined his views on defusing the unprecedented danger threatening his country and world peace. He has expressed these views before but as the menace of confrontation with the Iranian regime looms increasingly heavier, the relevance and urgency of Reza Pahlavi's appeal is becoming more apparent.

The piece continues:

In an article published in Le Monde dated 21 September 2007 he points to a third way of encountering the regime in Tehran which is neither violent military attack nor appeasement.

According to Reza Pahlavi what can save Iran and the world from disaster is a synergy between the democratic struggle from inside the country on the one hand and the will of international community on the other. The regime needs to be crippled from within and isolated from without. Economic sanctions together with political pressure should be the focus of the international efforts and not preparation for a military attack.

The Iranian people's concerns, the Prince insists, are not building a nuclear capability, smuggling IEDs into Iraq or blowing up U.S. troops there. Their worries are more immediate.

The priority of Iranians who are submitted to relentless oppression and persecution of a brutal dictatorship is not how to respond to the nuclear challenge or to fight the adventurous foreign policy of the Islamic Republic. Issues of vital importance to Iranian people right now are daily violations of human rights, growing poverty and unemployment and the absence of liberty. He writes:

The prince, the IranPressNews states, is more popular back home than any opposition figure currently. Of course, popular opposition figures residing in Iran end up as dead opposition figures.

As news of Pahlavi's plan grows, it's likely to be attacked; perhaps by his father's old bane, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Unless the prince is prepared to condemn Israel or utter some kind words for Hamas. The closer Iran's mullahs come to acquiring a nuclear capability, the more U.S. and world opinion grows polarized.

It may be that a solution is found between the two extremes. But time grows short, as more people choose sides between the Bombers and the Peaceniks.
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Daily Cox & Forkum: Target Iran

Cox & Forkum

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Norman Podhoretz and Iran: A GOOD OPTION HARD TO FIND; BOMBING IRAN NOT A BAD ONE

[above: Iranian targets; from the World Jewish News Agency.]
by Mondoreb

If one spends much thought on the Iranian situation, not many options are appealing. Only a year ago, most on the right were ruling out military options. No more.

From Politico.com
President Bush and Karl Rove sat listening to Norman Podhoretz for roughly 45 minutes at the White House as the patriarch of neoconservatism argued that the United States should bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The meeting was not on the president’s public schedule.

The article continues.

Rove was silent throughout, though he took notes. The president listened diligently, Podhoretz said as he recounted the conversation months later, but he “didn’t tip his hand.”

“I did say to [the president], that people ask: Why are you spending all this time negotiating sanctions? Time is passing. I said, my friend [Robert] Kagan wrote a column which he said you were giving ‘futility its chance.’ And both he and Karl Rove burst out laughing.

“It struck me,” Podhoretz added, “that if they really believed that there was a chance for these negotiations and sanctions to work, they would not have laughed. They would have got their backs up and said, ‘No, no, it’s not futile, there’s a very good chance.’ ”

Norman Podhoretz is right here. The unspoken conclusion: negotiations are useless and stronger means will be needed to counter the Islamic Republic's threat.

The above story will, no doubt, strike fear into the Left. We will hear their usual cant: "War solves nothing" and "Using violence to stop violence is no solution". But military action is always on the table in any country intent on protecting its interests and citizens.

When the Roman Empire could no longer protect trade routes, it's citizens abroad and it interests, it faded into disrepair and, finally history. The Left thinks the United States is impervious to the twin dictates of human nature and history. It is not. One of the rules of history, repeatedly demonstrated century after century, still holds true.

Use it or lose it.

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Step Away from the Islamic RepublicIRAN ISSUES 'STERN WARNING'"I'm Not Kidding!You'll Be Sorry! Really!"

by Mondoreb

Iran issued the latest in its seemingly-endless string of warnings this morning. The freshest warning has a whiff of the others: Don't mess with us!' Likening Iranian forces to his country's burgeoning nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said both were for 'peaceful purposes'.
From the BBC this morning:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has issued a tough warning to any country considering an attack on Iran.
He said Iran's forces were just for defence, but that anybody who attacked would experience nothing but regret.

In a direct rebuke to American peaceniks, Congressional Democrats and EuroGoofs everywhere, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, bragged that sanctions wouldn't work, so don't even try.

"Those [countries] who assume that decaying methods such as psychological war, political propaganda and the so-called economic sanctions would work and prevent Iran's fast drive toward progress are mistaken," the president said.

And of course, when Iranian military officials are captured transporting explosives into Iraq,as happened a few days ago, they are also there for "peaceful purposes". Leftists are distressed about those Americans "beating the drums for war with Iran."

Forget the drums. It's time to start beating on the Islamic Republic itself.

[pic by Newprophecynet]
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WHAT EVIL LURKS?"I WAS DICK CHENEY'S BRAIN!"Foreign Policy 'Expert' Goes In And Comes Out Alive to Tell About It!

by Mondoreb & Little Baby Ginn

Whenever the moon is full, they say, if you listen closely, you may hear more ravings from the "Cheney is Evil" crowd.
According to a friend, who heard it from a friend, who told it to a friend:

Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at New America Foundation and publisher of The Washington Note, says Bush has deviated from a Cheney-laid track to launch a first-strike on Iran, citing, as examples, frustrations that the vice president's aides are airing, a conversation with a journalist who sat in on a December 2006 strategy meeting, and private conversations with high-level foreign policy players.

"A mistake in the Gulf where ships collide or US soldiers are attacked or Israel fires a low-level cruise missile attack against Natanz or there's a border skirmish between Iraq and Iran that results in the death of a high-ranking military or diplomatic official – any of these could spark a conflict," he said.

Joe Klein, chief of Time's Iranian Apologies Division is worried about those notorious rogues, the Cheney Gang. Everyone knows how bad things could get if they get their hands anywhere near the controls of power.

"I'm not saying there won't be any war but nothing in Bush’s posture suggests he's really with the Cheney gang yet. But I do worry about the Cheney gang and the [Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps]/Ahmadinejad crowd in Iran trying to precipitate a spark that produces a very fast escalation that circumvents most of Bush’s national security decisionmaking structure -- and that kind of war is something we should worry about. That's what I think could happen.

"An 'accidental war' would escalate quickly and 'end run,' as Cheney aide [David] Wurmser put[s] it, the president's diplomatic, intelligence and military decision-making apparatus," Clemons wrote in his Salon editorial. "It would most likely be triggered by one or both of the two people who would see their political fortunes rise through a new conflict -- Cheney and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

So any conflict with Iran wouldn't be about Iranian-imported IEDs into Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers, or a nuclear-armed Iran blackmailing other countries in the Middle East, or Iran raining down a nuclear holocaust on Israel. It's all about the political calculus of the Cheney Gang.

It's always refreshing to get a Leftard look into the workings of Dick Cheney's brain. America never can hear too much about the Cheney Gang's evil machinations. Because it's never about national defense or U.S. interests; it's always about politics, baby.
Foreign policy expert says Bush has ruled out first-strike on Iran; Worries about 'accidental' conflict
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A MODERN LOVE STORY:AHMADINEJAD AND TIME -Baby, You Know I Don't Like it When You Talk All Crazy Like That

by Mondoreb

It's the autumn in Tehran, the leaves are falling and the thoughts of MSM journalists turn to visions: walking along with a bright-eyed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hand-in-hand, hair sparkling from misty rain, heads thrown back in laughter and young love.

That's the image one got from yesterday's Time magazine piece by Tony Karon, 'Why the Tough Talk on Iran?" In it, Karon coyly blows kisses at Ahmadinejad, while demanding to know why France has suddenly cooled on the Islamic Republic. Of course, the culprit in this good-love-turns-bad tale is George W. Bush.

The governments of Iraq and Afghanistan have warm, cooperative ties with Tehran, while Russia continues to work on Iran�s nuclear program and resists Western efforts to ratchet up U.N. pressure. In fact, the only one of Iran's neighbors for whom it may be true, as the French PM suggests, that tensions have reached "an extreme point," is the United States — a neighbor by virtue of its presence in Iraq.

In an incredible three-fer, Karon vindicates Sadaam, slyly slips in a reference to the Left's fantasies about how many Iraqis died in the conflict AND manages to sound put off--all in two sentences.

But, having been vindicated in his prewar claim that Saddam had no nuclear weapons program, [IAEA chief Dr. Mohammed] ElBaradei is unlikely to back off. "I would hope that everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation, where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons," he said in response to earlier criticism.

It all comes down to France, who is waking up to the dangers a nuclear-armed Iran poses to its interests. One can almost hear the sputtering, "But, but, this is so--unFrench-like!" Time sounds frantic here. The U.S. may be thinking of taking action? Of protecting their interests? Of rallying other countries to their side? Even the French?

By the end of this article, expectations rise that Karon turns to Mahmoud, looks him in the eye, and whispers "You're incorrigible!"

graphic by RidesAPaleHorse
Complete article at Why the Tough Talk on Iran?"

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IRANIAN OFFICER SEIZED IN IRAQIranian Denials to Follow:"He Was a Tourist With Explosive Inclinations"

by Mondoreb

By now, everyone knows their parts: Iranian is captured by U.S. forces in Iraq, Iran issues denials, the Europeans and the UN will issue calls "to remain calm" and more Americans fighting in Iraq will die.

US-led forces in Iraq say they have arrested an Iranian officer operating in the north of the country.
They say the man was a member of the Quds Force - an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards - and was detained in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya.

"This individual has been involved in transporting improvised explosive devices," the American military said.
More on this BBC story.

It's perfectly OK for Iran to be operating in Iraq trying to kill American soldiers--if they had the balls to declare war. Since they don't, it's only fitting that the 'cowboys from the U.S.' do it for them. And do it before they become nuclear-armed.
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Man In The Street Reactions To Coming Iranian War

France Says Prepare For Iran War

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IRAN SEEKS TO HOLD ISRAEL HOSTAGE: 600 Missles Pointed at Israelis

by Mondoreb

Missiles being launched at Israelis is nothing new.

However, yesterday's Jerusalem Post: Online had an article detailing a different threat: different rockets, different foe.

Six hundred Iranian Shihab-3 missiles are pointed at targets throughout Israel, and will be launched if either Iran or Syria are attacked, an Iranian website affiliated with the regime reported on Monday.

"Iran will shoot at Israel 600 missiles if it is attacked," the Iranian news website, Assar Iran, reported. "600 missiles will only be the first reaction."
According to the report, dozens of locations throughout Iraq, which are being used by the US Army, have also been targeted.

The Shihab missile has a range of 1,300 km, and can reach anywhere in Israel.

This sounds a bit like Sadaam Hussein's threat to rain fire and destruction down on both U.S. invading forces and Israel, during the build-up prior to both US-Iraqi Wars. The article continues:

On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that the nuclear Iranian crisis forces the world "to prepare for the worst," and said that in this case it "is war."

Kouchner emphasized, however, that negotiations should still be the preferred course of action.

Kouchner, quoted by French daily Le Figaro, added that "Iran does whatever it pleases in Iraq ... one cannot find in the entire world a crisis greater than this one."

With even the French taking a realistic view of the Iranian threat, the Iranians will soon attempt to stall for more time by offering negotiations leading to nowhere--except a nuclear Islamic Republic.

The sooner the Iranian nuclear threat is ended, the better. Take 'em out before there's 700.

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IRANIAN WAR UPDATE: Moscow Warns Against War with Iran

[above, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (L) meets his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for talks in Moscow.]
by Mondoreb

From a YahooNews story 2 hours old at posting:

Russia expressed worry Tuesday over the possibility of war with Iran as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner pressed for tougher sanctions against the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme.

The Russians are pushing for "sanctions"--the same tired non-solution that brought us to the present crisis. Endless negotiations for no reason--other than when Iran declares it has nuclear bomb capabilites, Russia and the rest of Europe can relax and breathe a sigh of relief over the fait accompli.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasised Russia's "concern" over "multiple reports that military sanctions against Iran are being seriously considered. It's hard to imagine what that could do to the region."

Kouchner called for "working on precise sanctions" and added that France and Russia had differences on the issue.

The usual gang of suspects hostile to America's interests--Russia, China, Iran, the peace marchers, the Bush Bashers, MoveOn.org, North Korea, most of the UN--will do everything in their power to try and force the U.S. to ignore the Iranian nuclear threat. Get down on your knees and pray that the right people in the right places aren't listening to them.
[original post:9:08 am]
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WAR WITH IRAN-BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Iran Wants to Nuke Us

by Mondoreb
graphics by RAPH

Iran wants to nuke us.
Slowly, the reality of it is sinking in: the window is fast closing to protect this country from possible nuclear devastation. Some observers guess that Iran may possess the ability to produce an atomic bomb within months. And they have repeatedly stated what they would like to do to America. And what they will do to Israel.

Iran wants to nuke us.
And their ways are the ways of the coward: they will operate on the premise of easy deniability. How easy to slip an atomic across the border or even to the border of Israel with a Palestinian operative. And what suicide bomber wouldn't be persuaded that Allah might grant to him 144 virgins if he could only wound the Great Satan.

Iran wants to nuke us.
Does anyone seriously think that any of the Democrats running for presidents will protect America--until it's too late? Watching them dot their political "i"s and cross their focus group "t"s, is anyone inspired they would sacrifice any political capital in the defense of this country? They won't do it now and they are only running for president. The U.S. has approximately a little over 15 months to snuff out this noxious threat.

Iran wants to nuke us.
We don't have to nuke Iran to stop this menace. We don't have to listen to the outpourings of dismay from the Eurowhiners. How many people remember the whiners from 1980 when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor in Iraq? How many thousands would have suffered had the Israelis not acted bravely and decisively? Did they expect that Jimmy Carter would have acted? That is, other than race to the nearest microphone expressing his "concern"?

Iran wants to nuke us.
This is a threat to the United States. It is a threat to U.S. interests. It is a threat to Americans. The Left will moan. The Left is terrified that the US might defend itself and Europe won't like us. Peace marchers will bray, CodePink will make us hurl, life will go on and St. Louis schools will still be "atomic free zones".

If the upcoming president is a Democrat, we will be no better than the Euros: a watcher, a waiter, a victim. History will look back and shake its head at our failure when we had the capability of staving off our own destruction.

Millions will die, while we stood by.

Put that on a sign and march to it.

[story to be updated throughout the day.]

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