Iran threatens Israel; new EU sanctions

[mindyrbusiness]

Iran threatens Israel; new EU sanctions take force
http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/ ... E8601GPX00


By Yeganeh Torbati

DUBAI | Sun Jul 1, 2012 2:58pm EDT

(Reuters) - Iran announced missile tests on Sunday and threatened to wipe Israel "off the face of the earth" if the Jewish state attacked it, brandishing some of its starkest threats on the day Europe began enforcing an oil embargo and harsh new sanctions.

The European sanctions - including a ban on imports of Iranian oil by EU states and measures that make it difficult for other countries to trade with Iran - were enacted earlier this year but mainly came into effect on July 1.

They are designed to break Iran's economy and force it to curb nuclear work that Western countries say is aimed at producing an atomic weapon. Reporting by Reuters has shown in recent months that the sanctions have already had a significant effect on Iran's economy.

Israel says it could attack Iran if diplomacy fails to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear aims. The United States also says military force is on the table as a last resort, but U.S. officials have repeatedly encouraged the Israelis to be patient while new sanctions take effect.

Washington said the EU's oil ban might force Tehran to give ground at the next round of nuclear talks, scheduled for this week in Istanbul.

Announcing three days of missile tests in the coming week, Revolutionary Guards General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said the exercises should be seen as a message "that the Islamic Republic of Iran is resolute in standing up to ... bullying, and will respond to any possible evil decisively and strongly."

Any attack on Iran by Israel would be answered resolutely: "If they take any action, they will hand us an excuse to wipe them off the face of the earth," said Hajizadeh, head of the Guards' airborne division, according to state news agency IRNA.

The missile tests will target mock-ups of air bases in the region, Hajizadeh said, adding that its ability to strike U.S. bases in the Gulf protects Iran from U.S. support for Israel.

"U.S. bases in the region are within range of our missiles and weapons, and therefore they certainly will not cooperate with the regime (Israel)," he told IRNA.

Iran has repeatedly unnerved oil markets by threatening reprisals if it were to be attacked or its trade disrupted.

The threat against the Jewish state echoed words President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke in 2005, saying Israel "must be wiped off the page of time" - a phrase often translated as "wiped off the map" and cited by Israel to show how allowing Iran to get nuclear arms would be a threat to its existence.

The EU ban on Iranian oil imports directly deprives Iran of a market that bought 18 percent of its exports a year ago. The sanctions also bar EU companies from transporting Iranian crude or insuring shipments, hurting its trade worldwide.

"They signal our clear determination to intensify the peaceful diplomatic pressure," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement.

The EU sanctions come alongside stringent new measures imposed by Washington this year on third countries doing business with Iran. The United States welcomed the EU sanctions as an "essential part" of diplomatic efforts "to seek a peaceful resolution that addresses the international community's concerns about Iran's nuclear program."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said he hoped the sanctions would force Tehran to make concessions in technical-level talks with six world powers later this week.

MALICIOUS POLICIES

"Iran has an opportunity to pursue substantive negotiations, beginning with expert level talks this week in Istanbul, and must take concrete steps toward a comprehensive resolution of the international community's concerns with Iran's nuclear activities," Carney said in a statement.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain - foes of Iran which face it across the oil-rich Gulf - announced their own joint air force exercises on Sunday which they said would take "several days," their state news agencies reported.

In three rounds of talks between Iran and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, the Western powers have demanded Tehran halt high-grade uranium enrichment, ship out all high-grade uranium and close a key enrichment facility.

The talks lost steam at the last meeting in Moscow last month and there was not enough common ground for negotiators to agree whether to meet again. Officials - but not political decision-makers - meet in Turkey on Tuesday.
Washington sees the sanctions and talks as a potential way out of the standoff to avert the need for military action, but has not said it would block Israel from attacking Iran.

Tehran says it has a right to peaceful nuclear technologies and is not seeking the bomb. It accuses nuclear-armed states of hypocrisy. Officials said they were taking steps to reduce the economic impact of the new sanctions.

"We are implementing programs to counter sanctions and we will confront these malicious policies," Mehr news agency quoted Iranian central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani as saying.

Bahmani has struggled to prevent a plunge in the value of the rial currency and steadily rising inflation as the sanctions have taken effect. He said the effects of the sanctions were tough but that Iran had built up $150 billion in foreign reserves to protect its economy.

Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said oil importing countries would be the losers if the sanctions lead to price rises.

"All possible options have been planned in government to counter sanctions," Qasemi said on the ministry's website.

Last Friday, another Revolutionary Guards commander, Ali Fadavi, said Iran would equip its ships in the Strait of Hormuz - the neck of the Gulf and a vital oil transit point - with shorter-range missiles.

(Additional reporting by Marcus George and Isabel Coles in Dubai and by Jeff Mason in Washington; Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Peter Graff)

[wildernessvoice]

???????
Remember the crazy bassturds in the war between Iraqi and Iran?

[mindyrbusiness]

Iran drafts bill to block Hormuz for Gulf oil tankers
http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/ ... E86116OM00


DUBAI | Mon Jul 2, 2012 11:21am EDT

(Reuters) - Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee has drafted a bill calling for Iran to try to stop oil tankers from shipping crude through the Strait of Hormuz to countries that support sanctions against it, a committee member said on Monday.

"There is a bill prepared in the National Security and Foreign Policy committee of Parliament that stresses the blocking of oil tanker traffic carrying oil to countries that have sanctioned Iran," Iranian MP Ibrahim Agha-Mohammadi was quoted by Iran's parliamentary news agency as saying.

"This bill has been developed as an answer to the European Union's oil sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Agha-Mohammadi said that 100 of Tehran's 290 members of parliament had signed the bill as of Sunday.

Iranian threats to block the waterway through which about 17 million barrels a day sailed in 2011 have grown in the past year as U.S. and European sanctions aimed at starving Tehran of funds for its nuclear program have tightened.

A heavy western naval presence in the Gulf and surrounding area is a big impediment to any attempt to block the vital shipping route through which sails most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq and nearly all the gas exported from Qatar.

A European Union ban on imports of Iranian oil started on Sunday.

(Reporting By Yeganeh Torbati and Daniel Fineren, editing by Jane Baird)

[MikeEdwards]

Iran FM says Tehran wants ‘win-win’ outcome from nuclear talks
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, July 2, 12:43 PMAP

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran wants a “win-win” outcome in its talks with world powers over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program, the country’s foreign minister said Monday, warning that the only other choice is confrontation.

Three rounds of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers have failed to produce a breakthrough. A low-level meeting of technical experts is scheduled for Tuesday in Istanbul to see whether there is enough common ground to return to full-fledged talks.

“We want to see a win-win outcome,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told the semiofficial ISNA news agency on the eve of the discussions in Turkey. “In the talks, the other side has no choice but to find an agreement, otherwise confrontation will be the alternative. I don’t think that common sense is looking for a confrontation.”

Iran is locked in a tense standoff with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program, which the Islamic Republic insists is purely for civilian purposes, such as producing energy and medical isotopes.

The U.S., Israel and others suspect the program is instead a cover for building nuclear weapons. Israel has accused Iran of stretching out the talks to move closer to the ability to make an atomic bomb, and it has threatened to attack Iran a last resort.

Salehi said Iran prefers diplomacy to conflict, but stressed that it is prepared for anything.

“We are looking for a deal and not a confrontation, but if they (world powers) want to react unwisely, they should know that Iran will firmly defend its rights as it did during the Iran-Iraq war” in the 1980s, he said.

The U.S. and EU have imposed several rounds of sanctions to pressure Iran to give up it uranium enrichment program. On Sunday, an EU ban on the purchase of Iranian oil took effect, days after new U.S. sanctions prohibited the world’s banks from completing oil transactions with Iranian banks.

Iran acknowledged that the measures were taking a toll, saying it has stockpiled goods and hard currency to help cushion the economy.

The Islamic Republic initially responded to the sanctions by threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil is shipped. Officials appeared Sunday to back off from that threat, which roiled international oil markets at the time.

But the Iranian parliament’s committee on national security and foreign policy drafted a bill calling for Tehran to block the strait to tankers shipping oil to countries that support the sanctions, a lawmaker said Monday.

Ebrahim Aghamohammadi, who is a committee member, told the official IRNA news agency the bill will soon be discussed in parliament, and said that some 100 lawmakers have already expressed supported for the draft legislation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mid ... story.html

[mindyrbusiness]

U.S. Military Strength Beefed Up At Hormuz As Nuclear Talks With Iran Fade

Daily News debkafile & Sound the Trumpet.ca

The Obama administration released details Tuesday, July 3, of a fresh buildup of its military forces in the Persian Gulf, stressing their task is to fend off any Iranian attempt to endanger international shipping by blocking or planting mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
Shortly after the announcement, senior US administration officials said the fourth round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers taking place in Istanbul Tuesday were most probably the last: Tehran has refused to give way on the key issues of the 20-percent grade enrichment of uranium and the closure of its underground nuclear facility at Fordo.
The new war drums sent oil past $100 for the first time in three weeks.

As for the Gulf buildup, US sources said counter-measures were in place in case the extra forces were targeted for Iranian aggression.
Tehran earlier threatened military reprisals for the oil embargo imposed by the European Union Sunday, July 1. The next day, the Prophet 7 missile exercise was launched by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards simulating attacks on “enemy air bases.”

The wording of the exercise’s mission was taken as strongly intimating that Tehran had US air bases in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, including facilities used the US Air Force in Israel and Turkey, well within the sights of its missiles. It was stressed that short-, medium- and long-range missiles were being put through their paces.

Tuesday, commanders of the Iranian exercise reported that dozens of missiles had been trained for several hours on mock “enemy bases” in several countries, stating that missiles capable of hitting Israel had been successfully tested.
The US has doubled the number of fast warships in Gulf waters that are capable of instantaneously responding to Iranian moves for closing the strategic Straits of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes daily. More minesweepers are also on hand, as well as commando units for preventive action against the planting of mines in the sea lanes frequented by oil tankers on their way to and from Gulf export terminals.
debkafile’s military sources report that US, Saudi and other Gulf armies have been on high military alert since Thursday, June 28, on two counts: the escalating Syrian crisis and the potential threat to the strategic strait in response to the EU embargo. Iranian leaders have often threatened to treat this penalty as an act of war. As part of their new stance, Saudi forces moved up to the Jordanian and Iraqi borders.
According to our sources, the information released in Washington on the US Gulf buildup represents only a fraction of the concentration of strength gradually building up around Iran for five months since March. It was then that two squadrons of the F-22 Raptor stealth planes were moved to the United Arab Emirates air base at Al Dhafra and troops were flown in to two strategic islands, Masirah on the Gulf of Oman and Socotra at the meeting-point between the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Their numbers now are estimated at 40,000.

Related:
U.S. Flexes Muscles Against Iran in Gulf

Daily NewsArutz Sheva - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu from Sound the Trumpet.ca

The United States has deployed ships and aircraft in the Persian Gulf region in a clear warning to Iran that “the military option is on the table” if Tehran tried to block the strategic waterway uses by oil and gas tankers, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

“Don’t even think about closing the strait. We’ll clear the mines,” a defense department official told the newspaper. “Don’t even think about sending your fast boats out to harass our vessels or commercial shipping. We’ll put them on the bottom of the gulf.”

Another administration official was quoted as saying, “When the president says there are other options on the table beyond negotiations, he means it.”

The deployment of more American warplanes in the Persian Gulf would give the United States a greater ability to strike deep within Iran in the event of a decision by President Barack Obama to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The other side of the coin is the possibility that the American military force could cause Iran’s military generals to pull the trigger finger and try to block oil tankers from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. a move that would cause the price of crude oil – and gasoline at the pump – to spiral upwards less than five months before the U.S. presidential elections.

In addition, the United States has deployed more warplanes have been deployed at two regional bases.

The Obama administration continues to stiffen sanctions in Iran, but Israel reiterated this week they are too little and too late.

Iran continues to try to try to show it is strong enough to defend itself and also to launch attacks on U.S. bases and on Israel. It announced Tuesdays that it successfully fired “tens” of missiles that can strike Israel and regional bases, but the claims were made by the Fars News Agency, linked with the Revolutionary Guards and often a source of unsubstantiated claims.

Iran also has threatened to pass a law that would block oil tankers on their way to countries that have joined the American embargo, but there is no indication of how it could enforce such a law.

One major factor working against Iran is that virtually all of the Gulf States are aligned with the United States and have a common interest with Israel to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear ability and advancing its dream of establishing an Islamic empire in the Middle East.

[mindyrbusiness]

Iran says can destroy U.S. bases "minutes after attack"


By Marcus George

DUBAI | Wed Jul 4, 2012 8:24am EDT

(Reuters) - Iran has threatened to destroy U.S. military bases across the Middle East and target Israel within minutes of being attacked, Iranian media reported on Wednesday, as Revolutionary Guards extended test-firing of ballistic missiles into a third day.

Israel has hinted it may attack Iran if diplomacy fails to secure a halt to its disputed nuclear energy program. The United States also has mooted military action as a last-resort option but has frequently nudged the Israelis to give time for intensified economic sanctions to work against Iran.

"These bases are all in range of our missiles, and the occupied lands (Israel) are also good targets for us," Amir Ali Haji Zadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace division, was quoted by Fars news agency as saying.

Haji Zadeh said 35 U.S. bases were within reach of Iran's ballistic missiles, the most advanced of which commanders have said could hit targets 2,000 km (1,300 miles) away.

"We have thought of measures to set up bases and deploy missiles to destroy all these bases in the early minutes after an attack," he added.

It was not clear where Haji Zadeh got his figures on U.S. bases in the region. U.S. military facilities in the Middle East are located in Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Turkey, and it has around 10 bases further afield in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.

SCEPTICISM

Defence analysts are often sceptical about what they describe as exaggerated military assertions by Iran and say the country's military capability would be no match for sophisticated U.S. defence systems.

Iranian media reported that this week's three-day "Great Prophet 7" tests involved dozens of missiles and domestically-built drones that successfully destroyed simulated air bases.

Iran has upped its fiery anti-West rhetoric in response to the launch on Sunday of a total European Union embargo on buying Iranian crude oil - the latest calibrated increase in sanctions aimed at pushing Tehran into curbing nuclear activity.

Revolutionary Guards commanders have also threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which more than a third of the world's seaborne oil trade passes out of the Gulf, in response to the increasingly harsh sanctions.

Major powers have said they would tolerate no obstruction of commercial traffic through the Strait, and the United States maintains a formidable naval presence in the Gulf region.

Iran accused the West of disrupting global energy supplies and creating regional instability and says its forces can dominate the vital waterway to provide security.

"The policy of the Islamic Republic is based on maintaining security in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz for all ships and oil tankers," Iranian English-language state Press TV quoted the chairman of parliament's national security and foreign policy committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, as saying.

The United States and its allies accuse Iran of using its nuclear program to covertly develop all the components required to produce nuclear weapons, accusations the Iranian officials have repeatedly denied.

The world's No. 5 oil exporter maintains that it is enriching uranium for nuclear fuel only to generate more energy for a rapidly growing population.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)