Israel - Steinitz: A bad deal will lead to an Iran with dozens of nuclear bombs 10 years from now.

Israel - Steinitz: A bad deal will lead to an Iran with dozens of nuclear bombs 10 years from now.(JPost).

Israel's Strategic affairs minister warns world powers against signing deal that allows Iran to remain a threshold nuclear power while granting it legitimacy; says extending talks better than rushing to sign deal at any cost.

Former IAF chief: Time is on Iran's side.

                    Hmmm......14 April 2012 MFS - The Other News ....."Time Is On My Side."

Former IAF chief: Time is on Iran's side.(Jpost).HT: IsraelMatzav.Former IAF commander Ido Nechushtan told the JPost diplomatic conference on Wednesday that time is on the side of the Iranian nuclear threat.
Asking the audience to imagine the implications of a nuclear-armed Iran, Nehushtan cited the 1962 Cuban missile crisis between the US and the Soviet Union, which he said was cleverly managed and peacefully resolved by two responsible leaders at the time.
"Can you manage a crisis like this vis-a-vis a radical Islamic regime?" he asked, noting that a nuclear Iran would create a multi-nuclear Middle East. "This is a hot area, not built for cold wars," he added. "It's not an Israeli problem, but a regional and a world problem," he added.
Nehushtan described Iran's global arms and terrorism network as "an octopus," citing Iranian Fajr rockets in Gaza, Iran's presence in Syria, and subversive activities in Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, and Thailand.
With regards to Tehran's nuclear program, "time is working only for one side... the Iranian side, by definition," he warned. "As time goes by, it becomes less and less possible to stop this problem," Nehushtan said. "The Iranians are masters of negotiations. They invented the game of chess. They know how to do the business. Time is working on their side."
Nehushtan said a "global toolbox" is in place to prevent a nuclear Iran, adding that "sanctions are having an impact, but so far, they have not achieved their goal [to stop the nuclear program]. This toolbox has to be filled with all the options, all the time, in a credible manner." Indeed. The rest of his speech was also fascinating.Read the full story here.

French FM Laurent Fabius claims Iran is on track to produce nuke in 2013.

French FM Laurent Fabius claims Iran is on track to produce nuke in 2013.(TI).PARIS (AP) — France’s foreign minister says Iran appears on track to reach the ability to produce a nuclear weapon by the first half of next year. France is one of six countries, the so-called p5+1, that have negotiated with Tehran over its nuclear program, which Iran insists is peaceful.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told Europe-1 radio Sunday that unspecified experts “have established in an absolutely indisputable way” that Iran has compiled a full array of centrifuges that “apparently will allow the ability to go toward possession of the nuclear weapon by the first half of next year, the end of the first half.” He did not elaborate. Western nations fear Iran may turn its uranium enrichment program toward making weapons, a growing concern as Tehran expands the number of machines it uses to enrich uranium.Read the full story here.

Hmmmm.......Flashback Decenber 2011 - MFS - the Other News:

• Panetta: Iran can assemble bomb in year or less.(Ynet).WASHINGTON – Iran has reached the point where it can assemble a bomb in a year or potentially less, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said overnight Tuesday.In an interview for CBS's "60 Minutes," Panetta said that should Iran proceed with developing a nuclear weapon "then we will take whatever steps necessary to stop it."

Team Obama and crunch time on Tehran.

Team Obama and crunch time on Tehran.(JPost).By Michael Widlanski.

US President Barack Obama promises “no daylight” between the US and Israel when it comes to stopping Iran's nuclear bomb-making. But it is unlikely the US will launch military moves against Iran.

Amid his election campaign, US President Barack Obama promised “no daylight” between the US and Israel when it comes to stopping Iran's nuclear bomb-making. Many hope this pledge will be kept, but it is unlikely the US will launch military moves against Iran.
Previous US presidents who were more committed to use of US force abroad - Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan and both presidents Bush - did not employ force to protect Israel when it was attacked or isolated, and shied away from confrontations with Iran and Syria.

LBJ did not even send an armada to open waterways closed by Egypt in 1967, though LBJ was quite pro-Israel.

Reagan attacked Libya in a raid after a Libyan-aided terror attack on US forces in Germany, but he pulled out of Lebanon rather than respond to attacks backed by Hezbollah and Syria in which hundreds of Americans and French soldiers were killed, and he actually reached out to Iran in the complicated Iran-Contra arms deal.

George HW Bush pressed Israel not to attack Iraq even when it attacked Israel in 1991, and George W Bush preferred that Israel itself deal with Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007.

As the Talmudists might say, if such extroverted interventionists did not use massive force, Obama is certainly not going to use massive force.

Another way to see this is to look at the team Obama has assembled to deal with issues of terror, use of force and Iran. They reflect Obama’s views: Wendy Sherman, under secretary of state, leads talks with the Iranians. Sherman has been as successful there as she was a decade ago heading Bill Clinton’s efforts to stop North Korea’s atomic bombs. David Ignatius of the Washington Post has said her talks “have produced little beyond an exchange of paper.” Sherman’s background in social work and a stint running the Fannie Mae Foundation clearly impressed both Iran and the Koreans.

ATTORNEY GENERAL Eric Holder often seems like he wants to make America a safer place for terrorists. Whether it is trying to close down the Guantanamo base in Cuba and bringing terrorists to trial in downtown NY, or moving strongly to investigate CIA agents who interrogated terrorists, Holder often makes observers wonder whether he forgot on which side of the terror problem he was supposed to be working.

When he was in the Clinton Justice Department, Holder toiled to get pardons for convicted Puerto Rican terrorists - pardons opposed by the rest of the Justice Department. Holder often acts as if he were still serving as a partner at the far-left law firm of Covington-Burling, which does pro-bono work for terrorist inmates at Guantanamo.

Holder led Obama’s efforts to give terrorists more legal redress than drug smugglers facing police in NY or Texas. He gave the “Underwear Bomber” his Miranda Rights, and he imposed the Army Field Manual as the way to question terrorists.

This means suspected terrorist murderers are treated not just like local kids who boost a car, but more like uniformed combatants - like officers and gentlemen who just happen to be not uniformed, not gentlemen but most assuredly the kind of enemies who like destroying airports and cities.

Tom Donilon, national security adviser, is a career political activist and lobbyist. Like Sherman and Obama, he has helped and been helped by Fannie Mae, the housing loan giant at the heart of the housing finance bubble. Obama has sent him a few times to tell the Israelis not to bomb Iran.

Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s top adviser, is the inner-voice of Obama. It is nice to know that as Obama wonders what to do or - more likely, not to do about Iran - he can call on someone who was born and has lived there. Jarrett has also served as Obama’s emissary to the US Muslims, including wealthy donors from the Iranian community. Jarrett has strong views on national security, and she did not like General James Jones, the first Obama national security adviser, reportedly pushing him aside for Tom Donilon.

ON THE day after Iran and Hezbollah engineered an attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, Jarrett hosted a gathering of Iranian activists (some not US citizens) at the White House. The New York Times later quoted an unnamed White House official as saying that the attack in Bulgaria was “tit for tat” in response to supposed Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists.

So, military help on Iran from almost any US president was always an unlikely option, but expecting such help from the Obama White House is outright fantasy.

The Obama Administration is floating stories that Iran has been so hard-hit by sanctions that its hungry population will rise up in anger and overthrow the bomb-making ayatollah. Don’t bet on it.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans actually died of famine, but North Korea still got its bomb and then used it as a bargaining chip to get the West to give them food aid.

The writer, an expert on Arab politics and communications, is the author of Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat just published by Threshold/Simon and Schuster. He is a former reporter, correspondent and editor respectively at The New York Times, Cox Newspapers, and The Jerusalem Post, and he served strategic affairs adviser in Israel’s Ministry of Public Security and as an adviser to Israeli negotiating teams in 1991-92 at the Madrid Summit and thereafter.

Experts: Iranian military stuck in the past .

Experts: Iranian military stuck in the past.(Ynet).If war breaks out with Iran, the Islamic Republic would prefer fighting on foreign soil due to its outdated equipment, claim Israeli experts who believe Iran's nuclear program is a cover for its limited military capabilities. "Their most advanced aircraft is still the phantom, which we used in the Yom Kippur War 40 years ago," says Dr. Soli Shahvar of the Haifa University.
On Wednesday, the New York Times exposed a Pentagon intelligence report which suggested that in 2008, the Iranian military was so wary of an Israeli attack it fired on its own aircraft. Iran's leaders may not miss a chance to threaten Israel but its ability to realize those threats is almost non existent, experts claim. "As far as conventional technological capabilities, Iran is behind 30 years," Dr. Shahvar explains. "Aware of this handicap, Iran has been smart enough to develop a-symmetric warfare methods and this is a successful strategy indeed. Iran operates elements such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad and goes unpunished." What it lacks in military capabilities, Iran makes up in satellite and nuclear energy development based on collaboration with North Korea. "Iran is technologically advanced, but that doesn't win wars on the battlefield," Dr. Shahvar says.
But the ayatollahs are good at playing the game. Iran frequently releases images from military parades, missile tests and large-scale air and navy maneuvers. "It's mainly a game of deterrence," says Dr. Emily Landau of the National Security Studies Institute (INSS). "Iran has a tendency to constantly report about its military advancements but its de facto capabilities are unimpressive. Conversely, it is very advanced as far as missile technology." Landau claims that for these reasons, Iran uses its missile technology to create deterrence but at the same time tries to avoid missile warfare on its soil knowing it will not be able to respond. "Based on its conduct in the past decade, Iran is signaling that it has no interest in a war on its own soil," she says. "Iran's use of Hezbollah and Hamas coupled with its nuclear program proves it is ready for battle, but on foreign territory. " Landau estimates that Iran will not risk any escalation on its soil knowing that the US is far superior in terms of military capabilities. "If a country obtains a nuclear weapon, it should not be so concerned over its military capabilities." Meir Javedanfar of the Interdisciplinary Center believes that even if Iran meets its nuclear goals it would still not be strong enough to confront the West. Javedanfar claims that Tehran puts up a front mainly due to domestic reasons. "The regime has to show the people how strong it is, particularly after the 2009 coup attempt. They also need to show their Shiite allies in Iraq, Lebanon and in Hezbollah that they're a superpower. In reality, Iran is years behind in a military sense."Read the full story here.

U.S. Senate Approves Non-Containment Resolution on Iran with Overwhelming majority vote .

U.S. Senate Approves Non-Containment Resolution on Iran with Overwhelming majority vote .(Ynet).The Senate has overwhelmingly approved a resolution that reaffirms US efforts to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and says containment of a nuclear-capable Iran is not an option. By a vote of 90-1 early Saturday, the Senate backed the nonbinding measure that specifically states that it should not been interpreted as an authorization for the use of military force or a declaration of war.
Passage of the resolution comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pressed Washington to spell out what would provoke a US-led military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The Senate acted in the final hours before Congress broke for its recess. The measure was introduced months ago by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman. It endorses continued economic and diplomatic pressure on Tehran until it agrees to suspension of its uranium enrichment program in compliance with UN Security Council resolutions, cooperates with international inspectors and reaches a permanent agreement that its program is for peaceful purposes.Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who cast the only "no" vote, had spoken out against the resolution as an excuse for the use of military force. Congress has passed – and President Barack Obama has signed – tough sanctions on Iran to limit its oil sales, hamper its economy and make it difficult for Tehran to finance its uranium enrichment program.Read the full story here.

Four Questions and One Conclusion Regarding Obama and Iran.

Four Questions and One Conclusion Regarding Obama and Iran.(IE).By Amos Gilboa.The discourse on the Iranian subject is saturated with clichés and slogans. In order to fathom the American policy, one needs to understand what lies behind them.

They tell that back at the time, there took place a dispute between the Prime Minister Golda Meir and the American Secretary of State in the 70s, Henry Kissinger. Kissinger would present her an argument for his position, and Golda would answer with a counter-argument. And then Kissinger would bring up another argument, and Golda would respond with a counter-argument. So this duel went on until all Golda’s arguments were refuted. At this moment she said: “But I believe that…” Before she completed the sentence, Kissinger intervened and said: “I give up because I’m unable to argue with beliefs.”*
I recalled this story in light of the words of faith voiced over here recently on the U.S. and Iran issue. 
Many are those who come and say: “I believe the Americans/I believe Obama” – including the President of the country. Those hearing it interpret that those who say so believe that ultimately, if Iran truly faces acquiring of the nuclear capacity, the United States will come with all its abilities and terminate the Iranian capability.
Some of the believers do not explain the source of their faith. Peres at least did: There was no American president who didn’t go to war beyond the borders of his country, and a nuke in Iran’s hands endangers the United States at the same measure as it endangers Israel.
In the spirit of Kissinger’s words, there is no place in strategic debate for expressions like “I believe” or “I don’t believe” – but instead, for assessments, likelihoods or probabilities, interests, world outlooks, circumstances and plenty of diverse considerations. In order to try and understand the American policy, I’m raising four questions.

1. The first question deals with General Dempsey, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. He obsessively repeats the statement that Israel doesn’t have an ability to eliminate the Iranian nuclear program. Well and good, and possibly, very accurate. But from the most senior American military personality, I expect to hear other things, such as what the American capabilities are or will America be able to eliminate the Iranian nuclear capacity by conventional forces?

2. The second question is related to the U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and again to Dempsey. They keep saying that they don’t want to be a part of Israeli unilateral strike and warn that Israel will be left alone.
My opinion is that Israel must coordinate its steps with the United States as a supreme commandment, but I raise the question: If the words of the American top brass are true, isn’t it saying, in practice, the following thing to Iran and the whole world – “We don’t care what will happen to the State of Israel after the attack (although their President’s motto is that “the American commitment to Israel’s security is unwavering”)? Isn’t the U.S. willing to defend its own strategic interests in the region which could go into a tailspin after an Israeli attack?

3. The next question has to do with the well-worn cliché: “There’s still time for sanctions and diplomacy.” Which is a correct statement, however, the question arises: Why not all of the possible sanctions are employed? And until when there is time? If back at the time, Obama allotted one year to the permanent Israeli-Palestinian agreement, why the United States doesn’t set some general point of time now?

4. The last question is connected to even more worn cliché: “All the options are on the table.” OK, so what? Why doesn’t the United Sates issue something a little bit more clear and determined? Something that would be more concrete and at the same time, not binding in a way like tying the hands? Everyone can put together for himself the possible answers. 
When I put together my answers and analyze Obama’s worldviews and the current American interests, my conclusion, as of now, is: The chance that Obama will reconcile with a nuclear Iran is higher than the chance that he’ll act militarily for destroying its nuclear capability.

The author is Brigadier General (res.), adviser on intelligence affairs to the Israeli intelligence community and lecturer on intelligence. He has held several senior positions in the Intelligence Corps and in the Intelligence Department of the IDF General Staff, most recently as Head of the Research Division. He also served as Adviser to the Prime Minister on Arab Affairs and as Adviser to the Defense Minister.
* The quote hasn’t been verified.

Egypt: The Muslim Brotherhood Bomb?

Egypt: The Muslim Brotherhood Bomb?(MidleEastForum).By Raymond Stock. Gatestone Institute. September 7, 2012.

When Egypt's first civilian, democratically elected dictator,[1] Mohamed Mursi became his country's first head of state to visit Iran since its own Islamic revolution in 1979 for the annual meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on August 30, the two leaders might have gone beyond the scheduled turnover of NAM's leadership from Mursi to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran: they most probably discussed Egypt's quietly reviving drive to acquire nuclear power — possibly including nuclear weapons — and how Iran might be of help.
Since taking office on June 30, Mursi has reportedly offered to renew diplomatic relations with Tehran, severed for more than three decades — but then repeatedly denied that he had planned to do so. His visit for the NAM conference, however, along with his sudden recent proposal to set up a committee of four nations including Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to try to end the fighting in Syria, and Egypt's refusal to inspect an Iranian ship passing through the Suez Canal en route to Syria, all indicate that Cairo's relations with Tehran are improving dynamically. Meanwhile, in advance of Mursi's arrival, Iran was said to have offered to assist Egypt in developing a nuclear program.
Almost completely overlooked in Mursi's warp-speed takeover of total state power in Egypt since his election victory, was that on July 8, the Ministry of Electricity and Energy (MoEE) handed him a feasibility study for the creation of a nuclear power plant at El-Dabaa in the Delta[2] -- possibly the first of four nuclear power plants around the country, the last of which would be brought online by 2025, according to a plan announced by MoEE in spring 2011. (Under the plan, El-Debaa would reach criticality—become operational--in 2019.) While Mursi has not yet announced his decision on whether to proceed with the projects, a number of international companies from Canada, China, France, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. have expressed interest in the bidding for them. In his trip to Beijing just prior to heading for Tehran, Mursi requested $3 billion for "power plants" from the Chinese, according to the geostrategic analysis firm Stratfor. Meanwhile, the website israelhayom.com reported on August 30 that the previous day Mursi had told a group of Egyptian expatriates living in China that he was considering the revival of Egypt's nuclear power program.[3] Now comes the possibility that Iran will transfer its nuclear capabilities to Egypt. As Stephen Manual reported from Tehran on August 26 for the website allvoices.com:

"Mansour Haqiqatpour, a member [vice-chairman] of the country's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, told the state-run television station, Press TV, that Iran also plans to invite heads of states to visit the country's nuclear facilities on sidelines of NAM summit. The purpose of the visit is to counter the propaganda unleashed by Western countries that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. He said that Iran was ready to share experience and expertise on nuclear facilities with Egypt and there was no harm in it. One can easily infer from the statement of Haqiqatpour that Iran is indirectly urging Egypt to go for the nuclear technology.[4]"

Iran later denied that it had invited any foreign heads of state to visit any of its nuclear sites during the NAM conference—but not, apparently, the offer to assist Egypt's nuclear program.[5] Although in Tehran Mursi also renewed Egypt's long-standing call for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East, since at least 2006 the Muslim Brotherhood (MB, in which Mursi served as a major leader before his election) has called for Egypt to develop its own nuclear deterrent.[6] This view is so popular that in an interview on the Cairo channel ON-TV, on August 21, 2011, a retired Egyptian army general, Abdul-Hamid Umran said that it was "absolutely necessary" for the nation's security to have "a nuclear program." By this, he made clear, he did not mean a purely civilian program to produce electric power, to which Egypt is technically entitled as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). He said, rather, that Egypt should declare the program's peaceful purposes, and then systematically fool the international inspectors to achieve the needed levels of uranium enrichment to manufacture bombs — citing Iran as an example of how this can be done, and providing detailed steps to accomplish it.[7] In another interview (for Egypt's Tahrir-TV) on August 6, 2012, Umran again demanded that Egypt develop its own nuclear weapons, stressing that if Israel finds itself in a "difficult situation," it would use its own nuclear shield: in that instance, Egypt must also have one to defend itself. The unmistakable implication is that Egypt would need nuclear weapons against Israel's expected atomic retaliation in the event that Egypt went to war against the Jewish State.[8]
Given the MB's extreme hostility to Israel, its anti-Semitic and anti-Western ideology, and its recent, apparently complete takeover of the military and the rest of state power in Egypt, the possibilities raised are deeply unsettling. While none of this is conclusive, it definitely points to questions that have long been overlooked or too-easily dismissed in the debates about nuclear proliferation in a region that may soon explode in military conflict over Iran.
However it turns out, a review of the history and capabilities — past, present and future — of Egypt's 58-year nuclear program will quickly reveal why approval of the El-Dabaa plant could signal the rise of a whole new level of danger in the already fraught Middle East, following the Islamist Spring.
FROM PEACEFUL ATOMS, TO PURSUING WEAPONS, TO THE WMDFZ
"Next to Israel and Iran, Egypt has one of the most advanced nuclear programmes in the region," writes Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, in a background paper for a July 2011 EU seminar on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the Middle East.[9] Yet Egypt's nuclear progress has aroused shockingly little attention beyond the arcane world of WMD specialists and anti-proliferation activists in recent years.
It all began with seeming innocence. Responding to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's December 1953 "Atoms for Peace" speech at the U.N., Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser did not wait long to bring his country into the atomic age. Despite the American instigation, Egypt's first (2MW) research reactor, the ETRR-1, was built by the Soviets at Inshas in the Delta between 1954 and 1961. Next came a larger (22.5MW) open pool research reactor (installed by Argentina), dubbed ETRR-2. This light water reactor, capable of producing 6 kgs of plutonium (enough for one nuclear weapon) per year, started construction in the early 1990s, achieving criticality in 1998. According to its website, the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority (EAEA) now has a truly impressive wealth of expert personnel, with over 1,400 trained scientists, 2,300 technical staff, and roughly 1,300 in support staff as well. The EAEA lists its current activities as "research and technological projects," "radiation protection and safety," "society services activities" and "regional and international cooperation."[10]
Egypt's drive for nuclear capability seriously accelerated when in December 1960, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion revealed that his country was building a nuclear reactor (started with help from France in 1957), ostensibly for civilian purposes, at Dimona. Henceforth the open, primary goal of Egypt's program was to produce atomic weapons. (No doubt this inspired the American musical satirist Tom Lehrer to write, "Egypt's gonna get one too / Just to use on you know who," in his anti-proliferation song, "Who's Next?") Not enough funds were committed (nor probably available), however, to reach that objective prior to the devastating Arab defeat by Israel in 1967. In the aftermath, with no money left to invest in the effort, Egypt signed the NPT in 1968. Soon many of its nuclear scientists left the country; many moved to Canada, others to Iraq to work on the ominous nuclear program there.
In 1974, Egypt and the Shah's Iran jointly launched an initiative for a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East: in 1975, as noted by a recent study entitled, "Egypt's Nuclear Weapons Program," and posted on its website by the Federation of American Scientists:

The US promised to provide Egypt with eight nuclear power plants and the necessary cooperation agreements were signed. The plan was subject to a trilateral safeguards agreement signed by the United States, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Egypt. In the late 1970s, the US unilaterally revised the bilateral agreements and introduced new conditions that were unacceptable to the Egyptian government.[11]

With the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in 1979, Egypt's emphasis apparently shifted to the creation of nuclear power to produce electricity instead of bombs. Egypt did not ratify the NPT until 1981, the same year that (again working with the United States, which brokered and guaranteed the peace treaty) President Anwar al-Sadat decided to build a reactor on the Mediterranean coast at El-Dabaa, about 120 kilometers west of Alexandria.
Eventually, however, Egypt's economy—weakened for decades by the lingering socialism installed by President Gamal Abdel-Nasser (despite liberal reforms under his successor, Anwar al-Sadat, and greatly expanded by his successor, Hosni Mubarak), and the Arab boycott of Egypt over its peace accords with Israel—could not sustain nuclear ambitions. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine also depressed enthusiasm for nuclear initiatives. As its program languished in near-limbo, in 1990 Egypt called for the creation of a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone (WMDFZ) in the Middle East, aimed primarily at pressing Israel to accept nuclear inspections, sign the NPT, and abandon its presumed nuclear arsenal. All the while, Egypt maintained a policy, which continues until today, of studied ambiguity regarding its own intentions.
In1995, Egypt would only sign an extension of its expiring NPT agreement when the U.S., Great Britain and Russia agreed to push for the WMDFZ, with a proviso for pressure on Israel to join. Yet, due to the alleged non-universality of the NPT (as explained in an August 2012 profile of Egypt's nuclear program published by the reputable arms control organization, Nuclear Threat Initiative, or NTI):
Egypt has therefore refused to sign the IAEA Additional Protocol and the Chemical Weapons Convention, and to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the African Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (the Pelindaba Treaty), and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.[12]
It is revealing that Egypt continued to nurture clandestinely what seem to have been more dangerous nuclear desires. In 2004, the IAEA discovered traces of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) at Egypt's facilities, and in 2005 it determined that Egypt's nuclear authority had not disclosed either the import of uranium and or irradiation experiments that had taken place from 1990 to 2003. (The items found suggested at least the possibility of a secret uranium enrichment program that could be used to produce weapons.) Subsequently, the IAEA's then-director, Mohamed ElBaradei — the Egyptian lawyer who won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize — did not take action against Egypt for its covert behavior, which the agency treated as minor.
The IAEA found still more traces of highly-enriched uranium from unreported activity at Inshas in 2007 and 2008. That discovery prompted Pierre Goldschmidt of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to write in 2009, "One should remember that the HEU particles found in Iran originated from illicit nuclear trade with Pakistan and were connected with unreported uranium enrichment activities."[13] Again, although it issued a one-page report on the matter in 2008, and kept the investigation open, the agency took no further action.
By 2007, after considerable public promotion of the nuclear energy alternative by his regime, Mubarak said that Egypt would build four nuclear power plants around the country. Then in August 2010, the IAEA approved the El-Dabaa site for the first of these reactors. Little, however, had been done by the time of the uprising against Mubarak launched on January 25, 2011.
Soon after Mubarak's fall on February 11, 2011, the MoEE, then operating under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the military junta that ruled Egypt after his departure, said that four of the power stations would be built, beginning with a 1,200MW light-water reactor at the El-Dabaa site. In spite of this, the plan was quickly frozen during the chaotic, catastrophically cash-poor transition, and as part of the worldwide reaction to the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe that followed the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 off the coasts of Japan. In addition, in January 2012, in a show of local resistance, mobs of protesters, demanding that the plant be relocated away from the area, attacked the construction site; at the same time, "radioactive materials" were stolen from the property.[14] Then, on June 19, 2012, just before the final count of ballots for the second round of the presidential election, the project was tentatively approved again. Nonetheless, no known further action to implement it has been taken so far (although the nti.org analysis assumes it will proceed).
AN ASTONISHING CONSENSUS
All that is really lacking now is the money—and for Mursi to make public his decision.
But an astonishing consensus of media, government policy and expert opinion holds that, with tourism and investment at dismal lows, and vital foreign reserves rapidly nearing zero, Mursi will not choose to spend the large sums needed on the El-Dabaa plant. (The estimated cost of the four plants in the MoEE plan is $1.5 billion). Even with pledges of several billion dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar; a potential IMF loan ranging from $3.2 billion-to-$4.8 billion, and U.S. aid possibly to increase greatly beyond its current annual $1.5 billion in (mainly military), unless China accepts Mursi's $3 billion request, supposedly Egypt is so impaired economically that it simply cannot afford the dubious luxury of nuclear pretentions.
Yet that argument downplays or ignores Egypt's growing shortages of electricity. Even in Mubarak's waning years, the grid was spiraling outward too fast to avoid blackouts, which have only grown more frequent, long-lasting and unpredictable, especially in Greater Cairo, in the disorder since his fall. Nuclear power, at least theoretically, could end that chronic shortfall completely. It has now emerged, moreover, in a deal that has almost entirely escaped the media's attention, that Egypt is expecting to take delivery of two Class 209 diesel-electric submarines from Germany, over Israel's vigorous objections.[15]
Furthermore, pragmatic economic reasoning—integral to that consensus--might assume that Mursi is a normal leader, leading a normal political party, with a normal concern for the welfare of his nation's citizens. Unfortunately, based on the behavior of other Islamist regimes -- from Hamas to Hizbullah, the Taliban, al-Shabaab and even Iran, as well as the MB's own historic goals and ideology -- none of that applies to Mursi, or to the people behind him. About them, the consensus has been astonishingly wrong.
The same consensus, after all, held that the Muslim Brotherhood played only a late and minimal role in the 2011 demonstrations against Mubarak—when in fact it was involved from the start, and, as of January 28, the second day of the protests, brought the overwhelming majority of bodies to the streets through its extensive social and political networks.[16] The consensus also held that the MB would not win the largest number of seats in last year's elections for parliament; the MB won them in a landslide. Nor did it seem that Mursi, its dull and uncharismatic candidate for president, would likely get the nod. The consensus insisted that the SCAF's now-deposed chiefs, Hussein Tantawi and Sami Anan, were implacably opposed to him, and that Mursi, although democratically elected, was much weaker than the ostensibly intractable military.
In truth, the MB had long since infiltrated and subverted the military; its aging leaders themselves were apparently not unsympathetic: throughout the interregnum, they had shown signs of close cooperation. What the senior generals evidently wanted was a promise not to be prosecuted for their business ties to Mubarak, or for their actions after removing him: calls to lynch Tantawi, for example, were common on the streets. Judging by their appointment as "advisers" to Mursi, they apparently got their wish—at least for now. The consensus also holds that Mursi and the MB are genuine moderates, when, in fact, Mursi was known as the group's hardline ideological enforcer. And while running for office, he and the other leaders in the group called for jihad (war in the name of Islam, not Sufi self-improvement), the establishment by violence of a caliphate based in Jerusalem, and the imposition of shari'a (Islamic religious law) -- positions he has not renounced, and likely never will.
The consensus also held that Mursi and the MB, whatever their harsh "campaign rhetoric" (as one U.S. senator described it) would be democrats in power. Yet once in office, Mursi quickly seized total control of the state media, began to prosecute prominent journalists on trumped-up charges of plotting to kill him, and replaced ten of the country's governors, putting Islamists in charge of Egypt's major human rights council.[17] Mursi has also made it known that his next target is the nation's historically independent judiciary, the only branch of government not yet in his grasp.
Of course, he has had a bit of help from his friends—many of them abroad. His first public defiance of the SCAF—his attempt to recall the parliament dissolved by order of the Supreme Constitutional Court on June 14—came within hours of a July 8 visit from U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns, who offered him generous aid for the economy, and an invitation to visit President Barack Obama in the White House in late September. (Mursi evidently received the feasibility study for El-Dabaa the same day.) The Obama administration apparently helped negotiate the August 12 turnover of power to Mursi by his main adversaries in the SCAF, an intervention that enabled Mursi to establish a virtual one-man rule overnight, and that terminated the secular democratic promise of Egypt's massively overhyped January 25^th Revolution.
Mursi's first trip abroad as president was to Riyadh, where he was promised billions more in aid (apparently with strings attached), much of it possibly to finance a nuclear program, perhaps with an order to produce atomic bombs for the Kingdom as well (which is also said to have tried to purchase nuclear weapons from Pakistan). Qatar has pledged $2 billion (of which it has delivered nearly half of that amount as of this writing), and has said it will invest 18 billion dollars in Egypt's economy in the next five years. Now Mursi has visited Tehran, perhaps to raise the possibility of a joint nuclear endeavor with Saudi Arabia's great Shi'ite enemy, an act that would have put them both in a seeming quandary. (Unless, of course, they agree it is more important that they have common enemies: especially Israel, and -- long-term --the U.S. and the West.) As Iran's support for Hamas—the Egyptian MB's Palestinian branch--and cooperation with al-Qa'ida have shown, claims that Sunnis and Shi'ites never work together have clearly been greatly exaggerated.
A number of questions remain: Will Mursi choose to go ahead with the El-Dabaa project (and if he does, will he make that public?) Should he approve it, will Egypt choose to master the entire production cycle (including its own uranium enrichment), or will it rely on help from others to complete the process? And does it already have some experience with enrichment?
The ETRR-1, Egypt's first research reactor, runs on 10% enriched uranium, for which Russia supplied the last known shipment before the reactor came online in 1961. The ETRR-2 light-water reactor runs on 19.75% enriched uranium, initially provided by Russia, then by Argentina (which delivered its shipment in 1997). Egypt fabricates its own fuel rods at Inshas for the ETRR-2,[18] but its source for the enriched uranium to make them is uncertain. (Most light-water reactors today operate on less than 5% enriched uranium. Once one has enriched uranium to the level of 5%, they are assumed to have mastered the hardest part of the process. The 19.75 % level required to run the ETRR-2 is but a notch below the critical 20% level, at which uranium is considered to be highly enriched. It is then comparatively not difficult to reach the 90% level needed to make bombs.) So far it is not clear if foreign shipments of fuel for either of these reactors have continued since they each went critical, or who the suppliers might be.
Also at Inshas is a so-called "hot laboratory," the Hydrometallurgy Pilot Plant (HPP), capable of extracting plutonium from spent fuel rods. It was at this facility that the IAEA had detected the traces of highly enriched uranium, which led to an investigation that concluded in 2005: "the repeated failures by Egypt to report the import of nuclear material and the construction of facilities to the Agency in a timely manner are a matter of concern." Added to ETRR-2's already noted ability to produce plutonium through extraction, and Egypt's failure to sign the Additional Protocol to the NPT (thus forcing the IAEA to rely essentially upon what information Egypt chose to share with them), and an even more disturbing picture emerges.
The questions now are: How much plutonium has been produced so far—and what has (or will be) done with it? Does Egypt already possess the missile technology to turn its plutonium into deliverable nuclear weapons? If not, how long would it take to acquire the required amount of plutonium? Where has Egypt been getting the enriched uranium to operate its two research reactors at Inshas since 1961 and 1997? If Egypt decides to build the El-Dabaa reactor (and perhaps others too), would the IAEA be able effectively to monitor what happens there—or in other parts of Egypt's nuclear program? And while some may wonder if Egypt's nuclear materials--present and future—will be safe from terrorists, the question probably should be: will they be safe from misuse by its current jihadist regime?
SUNNIS, SHI'ITES AND JIHAD AGAINST THE JEWS
Other questions: Would Iran—which has enthusiastically praised the Islamist victory in Egypt (and throughout much of the Sunni Arab world)—actually want to assist the MB-led regime's nuclear program—and, if so, would Mursi accept such help? Would Saudi Arabia really fund a project that could potentially benefit not only Egypt, but its main Persian Gulf rival, Iran (whose nuclear program, leaked diplomatic cables revealed, Saudi King Abdullah urged the U.S. to bomb)? Would the U.S object to Mursi's approval of the El-Dabaa plant? How would it--and the international community--react if Iran really did become involved in Egypt's nuclear development? Would the European Union or its key member states, as well as Russia and China, support efforts to suppress either an entirely independent Egyptian nuclear program that showed signs of a hidden military purpose, with or without the participation of Iran? (Based on Russia's and China's lenient treatment of Iran and North Korea, probably not.) And how will all this play out at the upcoming Conference on a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in Helsinki (tentatively set for December 2012), which a number of Arab states are slated to attend (though both Israel and Iran have already indicated they will not take part)? Given the accelerating crisis over the obvious military character of Iran's nuclear program (despite its denials) and its ever-accelerating progress toward the bomb, that conference is bound to fail—and Egypt has threatened to withdraw from the NPT if it does.
Direct Iran-MB cooperation may seem unprecedented, until one recalls that in addition to Iran's financing of Hamas, the Mubarak regime, with apparent reason, accused Tehran of funding the MB in the final years of his rule. Additionally, in April 2011, Magdi Hussein, head of the Islamist-oriented Labor Party (banned under Mubarak, like the MB) claimed to have discussed Iranian help for uranium enrichment with Ali Akbar Salehi, the Islamic Republic's foreign minister, during a good-will trip to Iran. Commenting on his talks with Hussein, Salehi, as quoted by Al Arabiyya News, said that Iran's successful nuclear enterprise, "could pave the way for similar Arab projects."[19]
As former CIA operations officer Clare Lopez, currently an expert on Middle East WMD at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, remarked, "The most startling leitmotif here is the potential for new Sunni-Shi'a rapprochement, once again for the purpose of acquiring another Islamic bomb. After all, Pakistan and A.Q. Khan were the first sources of assistance to which Iran turned for its own weapons program in the 1980s."[20]
As if to buttress this point, an Iranian website belonging to the Ahlul Bayt News Agency asserted in an article on Mursi's then-presumed visit to Bushehr last month:

Referring to Iran's announcement that it has planned a visit to nuclear centers for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member states, the lawmaker [Mansour Haqiqatpour ] said, "The Iranian nation and government care about Egypt, as an Islamic state, and want Egypt to be a glorious country in international circles, so Egypt's president can visit all Iranian nuclear centers."[21]

Ironically, although there have been suspicions about Egypt's nuclear intentions for decades, it was assumed that Mubarak, as an ally of the West, would only aggressively seek to obtain atomic weapons if faced with a nuclear-armed Iran. Now it could be a nuclear-arming Iran that helps and encourages Mubarak's successor to follow the same path: not in an arms race, as many have feared, but as part of a common ideological enterprise, an Islamic nuclear one, that few dreamed possible but a month or two ago.
Egyptian-Iranian relations ruptured in 1979, when al-Sadat made peace with Israel, and when he offered safe haven in Cairo for his friend, the deposed Shah Reza Pahlevi (who died in Egypt of cancer in 1980). In revenge, the Khomeini regime named a street in Tehran for Khaled al-Islambouli, al-Sadat's chief assassin. Mubarak—wounded in the hand in the shooting of al-Sadat at a military parade on the eighth anniversary of the start of the 1973 war with Israel, on October 6, 1981—refused to visit Iran unless that street was renamed. He also feared and repressed the MB and its more openly violent offshoots at home—who, even though they were Sunnis and the Iranians were Shi'ites—drew tremendous impetus and inspiration from Iran's Islamic revolution.
Now that the Brotherhood has its first man in the Egyptian presidency, one of his first acts to was to call for the release of "the Blind Sheikh," Omar Abdel-Rahman -- the Egyptian cleric who issued the fatwa calling for al-Sadat's murder -- from an American prison, where he is serving a life sentence for his involvement in the World Trade Center bombing on 1993 and for plotting to blow up other major landmarks in New York City. (Abdel-Rahman also issued the fatwas that called for the killing of foreign tourists and Egyptian policemen in the Islamist insurgency of the 1990s; for the murder of anti-Islamist activist Farag Foda in 1992, and for the assassination of Egyptian Nobel laureate in literature, Naguib Mahfouz, who was stabbed nearly fatally by one of Abdel-Rahman's followers in 1994. It was also Abdel-Rahman's fatwa that Osama bin Laden cited as justification for the attacks of September 11, 2001.) Clearly, Mubarak's objections to visiting and dealing with Iran would make no sense when applied to Mursi.
As the clock ticks quickly toward the Iranian bomb, there has been much speculation about a possible Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. There is also a great deal to suggest that—however necessary it might be for the Jewish State's survival—such a strike will not happen (although Israel is not in the habit of announcing its major military decisions in advance.) Nor is it probable that America will intervene militarily, especially under its current leadership. It is obvious as well that sanctions will never succeed in stopping Iran from fulfilling the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's reported 1988 fatwa, calling on his country to acquire all types of WMD, including nuclear weapons, for both offensive and defensive purposes.[22] America's dithering over Iran and its indulgence of Mursi—whom it mistakenly sees as a "moderate" Islamist bulwark against al-Qa'ida (with which it differs mainly in strategy on reaching the same ends)—can only encourage its duplicitous ally on the Nile.
Lest anyone think that the MB does not want nuclear weapons and would not impose material hardship on the Egyptian people to attain them, anti-proliferation expert Ibrahim Said, in a précis of the Brotherhood's view of WMD for the website middleeast-armscontrol.com, recounts:

"…at a July 4, 2006 joint meeting of the foreign affairs, Arab, defense, and national security committees of the Egyptian parliament, Dr. Hamdi Hassan, spokesperson of the MB parliamentary caucus, made clear that his organization was interested not merely in using nuclear power for meeting Egypt's energy needs, but in creating an Egyptian nuclear deterrent: 'We [Egyptians] are ready to starve in order to own a nuclear weapon that will represent a real deterrent and will be decisive in the Arab-Israeli conflict.'"[23]

And in 2009, the global Muslim Brotherhood's senior jurist of Islamic law, Egyptian cleric Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, broadcast a sermon on Qatar TV, in which he declared that Muslim nations must acquire nuclear weapons "in order to strike terror in our enemies."[24] Notably, although Israel has probably possessed nuclear weapons since the mid-1960s, it has (unlike Iran) never threatened to use them, or even hinted at a desire to wipe any other country off the map. Al-Qaradawi, recalled from his forty-year exile in Qatar to lead the victory celebration for Egypt's revolution at Tahrir Square on February 18, 2011, has also enjoined the Muslims to "punish" the Jews, as Hitler had done in the Holocaust.[25]
Just as the U.S. looked away while Mursi used the August 5, 2012 terror raid against Israel by Islamists in Sinai to move tanks, anti-aircraft batteries and troop levels banned by the peace treaty into the peninsula,[26] it will also likely fail to rebuke, much less restrain, Mursi, should he choose to develop a nuclear program, with or without aid from Tehran.
It now appears, in fact, that Mursi has so cleverly positioned himself to be independent of all other powers that none of them can have effective control over his behavior. That independence means he may be able to take money from China (whose aid to Egypt may soon surpass that of the U.S.), and the IMF, as well as the Persian Gulf states--and still allow none of them to dictate what he does with it. He has so far maneuvered every other major player into a corner. Checkmate may be when he attains nuclear independence—possibly with a nuclear bomb. Of course, many observers are reading this as a sign that he is now being "integrated" into the international system as a "normal," if unusually fast-off- the-mark, statesman. More likely, his actions are the result of a strategy developed by the MB over years of planning for its eventual rise to state power in Egypt -- at least in terms of manipulating the international community to gain complete autonomy in foreign (as well as domestic) policy.[27]
Certainly Mursi's visit to China, immediately followed by Iran, and his confident proposal for a Middle East quartet including Iran to negotiate the end the Syrian civil war (which the local MB branch is winning, also with American backing), show that he fears, like other Middle Eastern despots at present, very little from U.S. pressure. Apply too much, he is hinting, and he could be gone. Nothing, therefore, would attest to a failed policy of appeasement quite like a complete break with the country, which--after we lost Iran--was, for over thirty years, our staunchest Muslim friend in the region.
For Mohamed Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who for decades have demanded war against Israel and death to the Jews, while calling for the subjugation and destruction of the U.S. too, the road to nuclear jihad may soon open before them—and with America's complicity. Who, then, would stand in their way?

Raymond Stock is a Shillman/Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a former Visiting Assistant Professor of Arabic and Middle East Studies at Drew University.

---

[1] Zvi Mazel, "Analysis: Brotherhood Taking Total Control of Egypt," The Jerusalem Post, August 23, 2012
[2] Egypt State Information Service (Cairo), "Energy Minister Reports on Dabaa Nuclear Program to Morsi," July 9, 2012.
[3] Daniel Siryoti and staff, "Egypt may resume civilian nuclear program," August 30, 2012.
[4] Stephen Manual, "Iran Ready to Transfer Nuclear Technology to Egypt." August 26, 2012. For another writer suggesting possible nuclear cooperation between Mursi's Egypt and Iran, see Nasser Saghafi-Ameri, "The New Egypt: A Potential Ally," Iran Review, July 18, 2012.
[5] "Iran denies plan to show nuclear sites to diplomats," Reuters, August 28, 2012.
[6] Ibrahim Said, Visiting Scholar at the Technical Nonproliferation and Disarmament Project of the UK/Norway initiative hosted by the Center for Accelerator-based research and Energy Physics, University of Oslo, "The bomb and the beard: The Egyptian MB's views toward WMD, June 11, 2012.
[7] Egyptian army general (ret.) Abdul-Hamid Umran, interviewed by ON-TV (Egypt), August 21, 2011.
[8] Egyptian army general (ret.) Abdul-Hamid Umran, interviewed by Tahrir-TV (Egypt), August 6, 2011.
[9] Mark Fitzpatrick, "background paper, EU seminar to promote confidence building and in support of a process aimed at establishing a zone free of WMD and their means of delivery in the Middle East, Brussels 6-7 July 2011".
[10] Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority website, "About".
[11] "Egypt's Nuclear Weapons Program." Federation of American Scientists, lasted updated May 30, 2012.
[12] Nuclear Threat Initiative, country profile, "Egypt: Nuclear," last updated August 2012.
[13] Pierre Goldschmidt, "The IAEA Reports on Egypt: Reluctantly?" Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2, 2009.
[14] Patrick Werr, "Radioactive material said stolen from nuclear plant," Reuters, January 19, 2012.
[15] "Germany declines comment on report of submarine sale to Egypt," Speigel Online, September 3, 2012, and "Israel seeks to dissuade Germany from selling Egypt two submarines," Egypt Independent, September 2, 2012.
[16] Raymond Stock, "The Donkey, the Camel and the Facebook Scam: How the Muslim Brotherhood Conquered Egypt and Conned the World." (Philadelphia: Foreign Policy Research Institute, E-Notes), July 2012.
[17] Maggie Michael, "Islamists installed in Egypt state institutions", AP, September 4, 2012
[18] Fitzpatrick, 12.
[19] Abeer Tayel and Mustafa Ajbaili, "Iran, Egypt Renewing Ties?" Al Arabeya News, April 18, 201
[20] Interview with Clare Lopez, August 25, 2012. See also: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/6170145/A.Q.-Khan-boasts-of-helping-Irans-nuclear-programme.html. I wish to thank Ms. Lopez, an expert in Middle East non-proliferation issues, for reviewing the technical aspects of my findings, and for her great encouragement and friendship as well. However, the research, writing, analysis and any errors are my own.
[21] "Iranian MP Hopes for Start of Iran-Egypt N. Cooperation after Mursi's visit to Bushehr Plant." Ahlul Bayt News Agency, August 26, 2012
[22] Con Coughlin, Khomeini's Ghost: The Iranian Revolution and the Rise of Militant Islam. (London: Ecco, 2009), 242-43.
[23] Said (see note 6, above).
[24] Ibid. Strikingly, al-Qaradawi's phrase is taken from the Qur'an, Surat al-Anfal, 8:60, "Muster against them what fighting men an d steeds of war you can, in order to strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides them whom you do not know, but Allah knows well," as found in The Al-Qaeda Reader, edited and translated by Raymond Ibrahim, with an Introduction by Victor Davis Hanson. (New York, London, Toronto: Doubleday, 2007), p. 54. One of al-Qa'ida's favorite verses, in Arabic it begins with "Wa'iddu," "Prepare," which is found at the bottom of the Muslim Brotherhood's official shield, featuring crossed swords under an open Qur'an. The reference is in fact to this verse, one that speaks volumes about the group's "peaceful" intentions. And it is the MB's official motto, as well.
[25] Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, "Allah imposed Hitler upon the Jews to punish them: Allah willing, next time it will be at the hand of the believers." Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar), January 23-28, 2009.
[26] Under Israeli pressure, Egypt has withdrawn some of the tanks sent into Sinai last month, but has left the majority in place. Nor does it seem that Egypt has withdrawn the anti-aircraft batteries, which also violate the peace treaty, and which have no obvious role to play in counterterrorism. In addition, there are reports in the Egyptian media that Salafi groups have made deals with the militants for the government, including elements linked with al-Qa'ida—a worrying but logical development if true: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/middle-east/news/article.cfm?l_id=8&objectid=10830459&ref=rss and http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/11600
[27] The always-brilliant and provocative "Spengler" (David P. Goldman), in "Egypt is an adversary, not a neutral" (PJ Media, September 4, 2012) has suggested that Mursi will not get what most of what he's asking for from the donor countries cited above, but is entering into an alliance with Iran to check the power of Saudi Arabia, which fears the MB's revolutionary reach within the Kingdom. (And to snub the U.S.—its common enemy with Iran, despite some overrated criticisms of Iran's ally Syria at the NAM conference.) Nor, he asserts, does Mursi really care if he gets the cash he needs to keep Egypt's economy afloat, for he hopes to control the masses in the manner of classic one-party totalitarian regimes, via rationing--turning the country into a "North Korea on the Nile". About all these points, he could be right, though he may have underestimated Mursi's fundraising talents in the end. In this writer's view, Mursi may want cash to develop his nuclear program, at the very least, and would be willing to make a deal with any number of devils to get it. And others—from China to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and beyond—may be willing to bribe him in order to use him against their respective rivals, all pawns in the same shrewd game.

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Iran Has Installed Hundreds of New Centrifuges at the Fordo underground nuclear site.

Iran Has Installed Hundreds of New Centrifuges at the Fordo underground nuclear site.(INN). Iran has accelerated its activities at the Fordo underground nuclear near Qom, international diplomats said Thursday. The information is of concern to Israel, which fears Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. The information revealed by the diplomats comes several days before the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is set to publish a new report on Iran’s nuclear program. According to the diplomats, the report will say that Iran has installed new centrifuges at the Fordo uranium enrichment facility. One of the diplomats estimated that hundreds of centrifuges were recently installed at Fordo and said that the IAEA’s basic premise is that Iran is continuing to install them. He added that the newly installed centrifuges are not yet active. Iran admitted last year it was moving more centrifuge machines for enriching uranium to the underground Fordo facility, which is carved into a mountain to protect it against possible attacks. The existence of the facility near Qom only came to light after it was identified by Western intelligence agencies in September 2009. The UN’s nuclear watchdog has already confirmed that Iran begun enriching uranium at the plant. If the new IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program verifies the diplomats’ claims, it may cause greater concern among Western countries of Iran's intentions and be used as proof that it continues to defy the international community’s demands that it stop its nuclear program. The newest information was revealed two days after the IAEA announced that it will renew its efforts to acquire access to the Iranian military installations in which experiments involving nuclear warheads are suspected to have taken place. The negotiations are set to begin on Friday.Read the full story here.

Video - Israeli Home Front Minister:"“The era of killing Israelis because they are Jews is over,”

Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak preparing groundwork for attack on Iran.

Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak preparing groundwork for attack on Iran.HT: IsraelMatzav.If anyone doubts that Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, is preparing the groundwork for an Israeli attack on Iran, please consider this statement made from the Knesset plenum today.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Thursday discussed the timing of a possible military strike on Iran, saying, "it would be much more complicated, much more dangerous and much more expensive - to deal with a nuclear[-armed] Iran in the future." 

 Barak, speaking to the Knesset plenum, added that discussions surrounding the issue are unprecedented in their thoroughness. "In all the wars and peacemaking in Israel's history, there is no issue that has been dealt with in such depth as Iran has," he said. You could say that's not saying much, considering that we went to war against Hezbullah in about 2-3 hours six years ago, but in 1967 the government deliberated at great length before the Six Day War, and they appear to be doing that here as well. Addressing the media attention on the issue, often critical, the defense minister added, "the decision to attack Iran, should the time come, will be made by the government and not by groups of citizens nor editorials."Hmmmm......Message to Barack HUSSEIN Obama: "YES WE CAN AND WILL".Read the full story here.

PM Netanyahu: If Iran goes nuclear, it may actually use bomb.

PM Netanyahu: If Iran goes nuclear, it may actually use bomb.(JPost).If Iran gets a nuclear bomb it may actually use it, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Monday, rejecting the notion that Tehran would act responsibly if it became a member of the world’s nuclear “club.” Netanyahu, in a meeting with visiting Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, spelled out five things that would likely happen, were Iran allowed to go nuclear:

1. There will be nuclear proliferation in the Middle East as various other actors will then want to have a bomb; 
2. Iran will have a firmer hand on the “choke point of the world’s oil supply,” namely the Strait of Hormuz; 
3. there will be a magnification of global terrorism because the terrorists under Iran’s sway will believe that they have immunity;
4.  and Israel’s cities will be rocketed even more because those firing the rockets will feel that they enjoy a nuclear umbrella. 
5. That the Iranians might actually use the bomb is a reality that cannot be denied, Netanyahu said. 

“This is a regime that has broken every rule in the book,” he added. “They very likely could use weapons of mass death.” Netanyahu said there was an illusion among many in the world that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, it would behave responsibly like the world’s other nuclear states. The prime minister, during the discussion dominated by the Iranian issue, said Iran is governed by a “fanatical regime” that sees itself on a sacred mission of global Islamic domination, and destroying Israel was just one step toward its larger vision.Everyone talks about the cost of stopping Iran, “but they shouldn’t ignore the cost of not stopping Iran,” he said. Netanyahu’s comments come a week after he said that the decision to attack Iran would be taken by the country’s elected political leadership, and not by the defense and security establishment. Those remarks followed media reports of Israel’s top security officials being opposed to an Israeli attack without US backing. In a television interview last week, Netanyahu said that he sees “the regime of the ayatollahs declaring what it has etched on its banner – to destroy us. It is working to destroy us, and is preparing atom bombs to destroy us. As much as it is dependent on me, I will not let that happen.” Hmmmmmm......"Pour les vaincre, messieurs, il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace et la Patrie sera sauvée!" ~ Danton. Read the full story here.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak 'Bombing facilities better than nuke-armed Tehran'.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak 'Bombing facilities better than nuke-armed Tehran'.(JPost).Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Wednesday – the same day Iran announced it had added 1,000 more centrifuges – that dealing with a nuclear-armed Iran would be much more deadly and costly than confronting Tehran before it goes nuclear. Barak, speaking to the graduating class of the National Defense College, said that Israel’s leaders were facing the most “complicated and complex” security challenges the country had ever faced.Barak touched on a recurrent theme in his comments – that the international community’s failure to stop the massacre in Syria should be a lesson to Israel about the world’s inability to enlist the “political will, unity of purpose and ability to act even when the reality necessitates it.” Saying that the Arab Spring had gradually turned into an Islamic summer, Barak said that at its moment of truth Israel could rely only on itself. The defense minister added that he was well aware of the difficulties and complexities involved in stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear arms. “But,” he said, “it is perfectly clear to me that dealing with this challenge when it matures, if it matures, will be inestimably more complex, inestimably more dangerous and inestimably more costly in human life and resources.” Barak’s words came the same day that Iran defiantly made clear that it was moving forward with its nuclear activities. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying Iran currently had “11,000 centrifuges active in enrichment facilities” in the country. If true, this would amount to an increase of 1,000 centrifuges in the past two months, since the International Atomic Energy Agency put the number of centrifuges spinning in Iran at 10,000 in a report it released in late May. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has warned consistently in recent months that Iran was moving steadily forward with its nuclear program under the cover of talks with world powers, said in a recorded message aired at the National Defense College graduation ceremony that in a region surrounded by missiles the best defense was “the ability to attack.”Hmmmm....."Pour les vaincre, messieurs, il nous faut de l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace et la Patrie sera sauvée!" ~ Danton. To defeat them, gentlemen, we need audacity, more audacity and always audacity and the Homeland will be saved!Read the full story here.

Khamenei Has Blood on His Hands, Is Lying about Nukes, Says Former Revolutionary Guards General.

                                        Khomeini " There is no fun in Islam"


Khamenei Has Blood on His Hands, Is Lying about Nukes, Says Former Revolutionary Guards General.(Guardian).A former general of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards has accused the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of having blood on his hands over the brutal crackdown on the opposition, and described government claims that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful as a “sheer lie.” In a letter to prominent opposition activist Mohammad Nourizad (website in Farsi), the former officer gives a rare glimpse of political dissent within the ranks of the elite force in charge of the nuclear programme and Khamenei’s personal security. Identified only by his initials, the general says that he and a number of his colleagues were threatened with execution for disloyalty and then - after a series of secret courts-martial - dismissed “because we refused to participate in the betrayals and the crimes committed by our seniors”. “I’m writing this letter to you to tell our people that there are still many generals and members of staff within the Revolutionary Guards who are opposed to these crimes and are waiting to join the people,” the letter reads. Speaking to the Guardian by telephone from Tehran, Nourizad - who published the general’s letter on his website - said he was convinced of its authenticity because it was handed to him in person by the former general. “This is one of the many such letters written by senior figures within the Sepah [Revolutionary Guards] that I have received. I have refrained from publishing many of them because I was worried they might pose security problems,” said Nourizad. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are an elite force separate from the Iranian army and under the direct command of the country’s supreme leader. The corps was founded to protect Iran’s revolutionary values, but has become increasingly involved in politics and business. In the aftermath of the fiercely disputed 2009 elections, several dozen Revolutionary Guards generals, as well as senior figures in the informal voluntary Basij militia, were replaced for refusing to use violence against unarmed protesters. According to the general, the order to open fire on the protesters came from the top. “[In 2009,] the leader [Khamenei] asked Rahim Safavi [a former chief commander of the guards] whether he would be prepared to run over people with tanks if they took to streets to revolt. He said yes and the leader gave him the order,” he writes. “They shut our mouth for years by saying that the leader wanted this or that … But we could no more keep it shut after the post-election bloodshed. This was the point many spoke out or simply refused to comply.” According to the general, Khamenei was also personally involved in the restrictions imposed on the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is still under house arrest with little access to the outside world. “How can a supreme leader with blood on his hands be close to God?,” he asks. The general also accuses Khamenei of lying about Iran’s nuclear programme, which is now subject to an international dispute, the general casts doubt on what the regime officials claim to be “peaceful” activities, describing them as the country’s “nuclear gamble”.
“The inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency are fooling themselves if they believe that the nuclear facilities on and under the ground are only for peaceful purposes,” he writes. “The leader said [in a fatwa] that Iran has only peaceful intentions with its nuclear activities. This is a sheer lie.” The general accuses the Revolutionary Guards of corruption and involvement in smuggling and the illegal transfer of foreign currency. “Is it not ridiculous? The presidential office established a unit to combat smuggling but at the same time, senior guards generals were doing exactly the same thing in the southern islands of Qeshm, Hormuz and Abu Musa,” he writes. “We tolerated the guards’ economic activities and involvement in smuggling with the excuse of raising funds for its revolutionary ideas.”Read the full story here.

Iran: We can destroy US bases 'minutes after attack'

Iran: We can destroy US bases 'minutes after attack'.(JPost).DUBAI - Iran has threatened to destroy US 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 US 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 US bases in the region. US 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.Defense analysts are often skeptical about what they describe as exaggerated military assertions by Iran and say the country's military capability would be no match for sophisticated US defense 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.Read the full story here.

Netanyahu, Barak refuse to see US official with negative report on Baghdad talks.

Netanyahu, Barak refuse to see US official with negative report on Baghdad talks.(Debka).The rupture between the US and Israel over Iran’s nuclear program widened further Friday, May 25 when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided not to be available to hear the briefing brought to Jerusalem from Baghdad by Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman who headed the US delegation to the Six Power talks. The report she delivered to National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror and Foreign Ministry Director-General Rafi Barak was that no progress had been achieved in Baghdad due to Iran’s refusal to budge on its “right” to enrich uranium at low (3.5-5 percent) or high (20 percent) levels or shut down the Fordo nuclear plant near Qom. Although the participants agreed to reconvene in Moscow in three weeks, the Iranian delegation stressed there would be no progress until the US and the other five world powers (Britain, France, Russia, Germany and China) recognized Iran’s absolute “right” as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium. Meanwhile, every day spent on diplomacy is thoroughly exploited by Iran to zip ahead with its nuclear plans.
The Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog (IAEA)’s quarterly report released Friday reveals that since February Iran almost doubled its stockpile of more highly enriched uranium which is close to weapons grade from 73.4 to 145 kilograms. The centrifuges at the Fordo facility, built into the side of a mountain, rose to over 500 from 300 in the last report. Using the IAEA figures, debkafile calculates that if Fordo goes on producing 23.9 kilograms of 20-percent enriched uranium per month, Iran will by the end of December have accumulated 336 kilograms of near-weapons quality uranium.
Friday, the Washington Post quoted Mohammad Hoseyn Moussavian of Princeton University as revealing that in 2004, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, “I would resign if for any reason Iran is deprived of its rights to enrichment.” Moussavian is presented as an Iranian academic visiting Princeton to lecture and write a book on the Iranian nuclear issue. debkafile reveals that he was the contact man in one of the direct, back-channel negotiations taking place in Paris between the White House and Khamenei. His words therefore were intended to carry weight as a reminder to Obama that the supreme leader, like the US president, intended to come out of their dialogue strengthened – not undermined.
And therefore, for both their sakes, Washington must endorse Iran’s “right to enrichment.The gap between Israel and the Obama administration widened in the course of Washington’s direct, secret give-and-take with Tehran.Hmmmm.....As i always said what did Obama and Erdogan promise Iran?Read the full story here.