Bharat Rakshak

Employing a tactic not seen in Iran before, a suicide bomber affiliated with a Sunni militant group killed four people and wounded 12 in an attack early Monday in Saravan, a southeastern city, the official IRNA news agency reported.

WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The United States and its allies share some interests with Iran when it comes to stabilizing Afghanistan, Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. military's Central Command, said on Thursday.

Petraeus stopped short of advocating increased cooperation with Iran on Afghanistan, saying it would be up to policymakers to weigh the common interests there against major disputes between Washington and Tehran on other issues.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to increase diplomatic efforts to engage Iran and to talk directly to its leaders. Petraeus' remarks raised the prospect that Afghanistan could be part of that dialogue.

Speaking at a conference in Washington on the foreign policy challenges facing Obama's administration, Petraeus said stabilizing Afghanistan would require a regional approach, involving Pakistan, India and central Asian states.

negi wrote:There is no country which can compete with US in double talk and Duplicity, even TSP will hang its head in shame.

Ek number ke M#@$#&^%$ hain

US, Iran share interests in Afghanistan - Petraeus

WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The United States and its allies share some interests with Iran when it comes to stabilizing Afghanistan, Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. military's Central Command, said on Thursday.

Petraeus stopped short of advocating increased cooperation with Iran on Afghanistan, saying it would be up to policymakers to weigh the common interests there against major disputes between Washington and Tehran on other issues.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to increase diplomatic efforts to engage Iran and to talk directly to its leaders. Petraeus' remarks raised the prospect that Afghanistan could be part of that dialogue.

Speaking at a conference in Washington on the foreign policy challenges facing Obama's administration, Petraeus said stabilizing Afghanistan would require a regional approach, involving Pakistan, India and central Asian states.

Only a day or two back I read a headline which claimed IRAN to be a number one security threat to the US, and now they talk about common interests. US arm twisted MMS to push India-IRAN relations down the toilet and now their Army Gen talks about involving India-TSP and Iran for stabilizing Afgansthan.

Airavat wrote:There are major hurdles for "normalization" because of Iran's huge ambitions in West Asia:

Claiming leadership of the Islamic countries. Iran's relations with terror groups in West Asia. Iran's interest in Shia populations scattered throughout the region. Future relations with Iraq.
And the Kurdish problem within its borders.

Maybe the Iranian route will eventually be used by the US for non-military supplies?

Yogi_G wrote:http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/200 ... 340500.htm

From January 1, 2009, ACU participants, including India and Iran, would have the option to settle their transactions either in ACU Dollar or ACU Euro.

shaardula wrote:was listening to bbc news on radio.

iran's satellite
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7866357.stm

The launch of Omid (Hope), Iran's first home-made satellite into orbit early Tuesday, Feb. 3, is a breakthrough demonstrating the Islamic Republic has managed to develop long-range, three-stage, solid-fuel ballistic rockets capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Israel and Western officials have been playing down this fast-developing capability while proving helpless to hold back Iran's nuclear weapons program. Omid was launched by the Safir rocket, whereas a previous launching was boosted by a Russian rocket.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report the new satellite is designed for tracking, research, telecommunications and carries digital measuring instruments. They stress that it is a feather in the hat for Iran's "Military Group" – the team of scientists and technicians working on its clandestine nuclear bomb program. They are clearly moving ahead undisturbed by UN sanctions or technical difficulties toward rapidly finishing work on nuclear warheads for their ballistic rockets.

In weekend interviews, International Atomic Energy Agency director Muhammad ElBaradei contributed to the international effort to talk down Tehran's nuclear advances. He admitted Iran was in the process of constructing nuclear weapons despite his agency's monitoring efforts. But in his view it needed another two to five years to attain this objective. He therefore advised the West to try and negotiate an accord with Iran through diplomacy.

Our sources point out that ElBaradei's remarks were misleading. His remarks referred only to Iran's overt nuclear program, namely uranium enrichment, but ignored the clandestine facilities where Iran is making big strides toward a nuclear weapon.

Iran considers itself the leader of the world's Shi'ite Muslims, and India has the world's second largest Shi'ite population, at 20 million. Iran has previously backed India against Pakistan's claims over Kashmir in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an international forum of Muslim and Muslim-majority countries. Iranian ports have also allowed India to circumnavigate Pakistan in trading with Central Asia. Iran, for its part, needs Indian business, investment and technology cooperation.

Manama: Gulf Cooperation CouncilGulf Cooperation CouncilLoading... Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah has accused Iranian officials making claims on Gulf territories of "being ignorant about international relations" and of "living outside history by being obsessed with expanding their lands".

The GCC secretary-general warned that the "unfortunate" allegations by people close to the Iranian leadership and government hindered GCC's "genuine efforts to build stronger relations with Iran based on mutual amicability and respect and aimed at ensuring security and stability in the region.

Iranians should put an immediate end to the "provocative and irresponsible claims uttered by the cacophonic voices of some Iranian officials" to ensure that GCCGCCLoading...-Iran relations are at the anticipated level, Al Attiyah said.

Relations between Manama and Tehran suffered in 2007 after Hussain Shariatmadari, the editor of the daily Kayhan, wrote on July 9 that Bahrain was an integral part of Iran taken from it in a Western plot with the Shah's collusion.

Financial Times

Iran holds enough uranium for bomb
Iran’s success in reaching such a “breakout capacity” – a stage that would allow it to produce enough fissile material for a bomb in a matter of months – crosses a “red line” that for years Israel has said it would not accept.

Iran has increased the price of natural gas it plans to sell to India through a pipeline passing through Pakistan to USD 7.2 per mBtu, which makes it the most expensive fuel in the country as of date. The move apparently has been triggered by the drastic fall in international crude oil prices which have dived from USD 147 a barrel in August 2008 to below USD 40 now.

Iran 'offered to halt attacks on UK troops' in nuclear pact

Iran offered to halt attacks on British soldiers deployed in Iraq in return for a secret pact that would enable it to continue its nuclear programme, a senior British diplomat has said.

By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:37AM GMT 21 Feb 2009

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

February 27, 2009, 10:04 AM (GMT+02:00)
Iranian strongman Akbar Hashemi Rasanjani sets a trap

The Friday sermon delivered by former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rasanjani in Tehran on Feb. 27 embodied an incentive and a catch for US president Barack Obama, condemned Israel and threatened Russia.

He said: "…we don't make false promises. Therefore I declare that Iran's nuclear plan is not to build weapons… and we are ready to prove it in negotiations." Indicating Israel, he said: "'You are planting a false notion in public minds." Addressing the Russians, he said bluntly that "…even if they don’t' deal with the [Bushehr] project, we can finish it on our own."

The Iranian leader closest to supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khameni had in fact issued Tehran's first explicit invitation to Obama to open direct negotiations which promised an Iranian pledge not to build a nuclear weapon.

That was the incentive. But the catch implicit in his message was picked up by DEBKAfile's Iranian experts: He was saying in typical Rafsanjani shorthand that Tehran was willing to kick off the bargaining with a pledge not to develop on nuclear weapons, provided Washington agreed to the Islamic Republic retaining the capability to do so.

This formula would reduce the Tehran-Washington talks to haggling over where to place the cutoff point in the Iranian program.

The Iranians would demand to be allowed leeway for completing a bomb within four to six months; the Americans would likely insist on halting the program two to-three years short of a military capability, and the negotiations would end in a compromise.

Rafsanjani employed this verbal tactic on the strength of the information about the Obama administration's position gained from informal preliminary Iranian-US contacts in the last two months. Tehran believes the US president needs Iran's help in the Afghan War and would therefore be flexible in his dialogue with Iran. They calculate that he would go an extra mile for the sake of showing he had managed to arrest the Islamic Republic's march toward a nuclear weapon.

Israel is adamantly opposed to this formula, certain Tehran will use it as a blind to forge ahead secretly until its clandestine bomb and warhead projects are close to assembly at short notice.

Thursday, Feb. 25, outgoing Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert commented on the launch of Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr: "We have deployed enormous efforts to reinforce our deterrence capacity. Israel will be able to defend itself …against all threats, against all enemies. I cannot say more but believe me, I know what I'm talking about."

Without referring to Israel by name, Rafsanjani responded by saying: "You are planting a false notion in public minds," in reference to the "unthinking words of the main enemies of the Islamic revolution."

But Russia, which had delayed completing the Bushehr reactor for 10 years on one pretext or another, was warned specifically: "The Russians and others should know that …even if they don't deal with the project, we can complete it on our own. But they must fulfill their promise."

Mohammad Khatami, the leading reformist contender in Iran's forthcoming presidential election, is poised to withdraw from the race.

Khatami, who held the presidency for two terms between 1997 and 2005, is understood to have told associates that he was standing down in favour of another reformist, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who announced he was running last week.

Intelligence made it clear Saddam was not a threat, diplomat tells MPs
• Government left 'paper trail' in build-up to war
• More facts still to come to light, says former envoy
David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
The Guardian, Friday 20 March 2009

A former diplomat at the centre of events in the run-up to the Iraq war revealed yesterday that the government has a "paper trail" that could reveal new information about the legality of the invasion.

Carne Ross, who was a first secretary at the United Nations in New York for the Foreign Office until 2004, told MPs: "A lot of facts about the run-up to this war have yet to come to light which should come to light and which the public deserves to know." There were also assessments by the joint intelligence committee which had not been disclosed, Ross told the Commons public administration select committee.

He told the inquiry that the intelligence made it "very clear" that Saddam Hussein did not pose a significant threat to the UK, as was being claimed at the time by ministers, and that tougher enforcement of sanctions could have brought his regime down.

He said he tried to inform ministers about his misgivings over the developing momentum towards war, taking them aside during their visits to New York or having brief conversations in their car to the airport.

But he said he was aware that speaking out too often or too openly - even in internal debates - about his concerns about the government's policy direction would damage his career by winning him a reputation as a "naive troublemaker".

Ross's evidence, by video link from New York, came days after Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary at the time, used the first ministerial veto under the freedom of information act to ban the release of cabinet minutes on the decision to go to war.

"I feel very strongly that there has still not been proper accountability and scrutiny into what happened in Iraq," Ross said.

"There should be a full public inquiry or parliamentary inquiry into the decision-making that took place. Hutton and Butler are by no means sufficient to that purpose and it is disgraceful that the government pretends that they are... if we had those systems of accountability and scrutiny then leaking and other more aberration behaviour from civil servants would be less necessary."

He was one of four "whistleblowers" who yesterday gave evidence to the committee.

They also included Katharine Gun, a former GCHQ translator who revealed the organisation was tapping phones of countries that were against the Iraq war; Brian Jones, the most senior expert on chemical weapons at the Defence Intelligence Staff; and Derek Pasquill, a former Foreign Office official who leaked documents about rendition and Muslim groups who were hostile to the UK receiving government money.

Jones and Ross never leaked any information to the press. Jones instead complained to his superior that he thought the intelligence dossier on weapons of mass destruction was being exaggerated but was told that there was "one secret piece of information which could not be shared with [him]" because it was too sensitive.

He told MPs that when the WMD dossier was published and he saw the difference between the foreword by the prime minister and the contents he "thought the intelligence services were going to be crucified".

But he instead he found that most MPs, with a few exceptions, supported the government. "I feel that you gentlemen [the MPs] have been either deliberately or accidentally misled and these incidents have not been followed up. I think that there has been a great laxity and that won't encourage people like me or my colleagues to come to you," he said.

Tony Wright, the chairman of the committee, agreed with the allegation. "I think you are absolutely right to castigate parliament, which I think has behaved abysmally in this matter - endless bleating about the need for an inquiry but a complete failure to insist upon one," he said.

Gordon Brown has promised to look at an inquiry after all the troops come home from Iraq.

shyamd wrote:Israel: Iran is only months away from building a nuke, has ballistic warhead capability

DEBKAfile Special Report

March 25, 2009, 3:31 PM (GMT+02:00)
Israel's military intelligence chief Maj. Amos Yadlin

Israel's military intelligence chief Maj. Amos Yadlin

Israel's AMAN military intelligence director, Maj. Amos Yadlin updated the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee on the state of Iran's nuclear progress Wednesday, March 25. He reported that although Iran is only months away from a capacity to make a nuclear bomb and has attained a warhead capability, Tehran has decided not to cross the threshold so as to avoid provoking Western retaliation.

DEBKAfile's military sources report this is not Tehran's true rationale. The Iranians are held back by two more compelling motives:

1. They will not be satisfied with a single nuclear bomb, but would rather build up an arsenal of 10 to 12 bombs and warheads for which they are short of enough enriched uranium at the moment.

2. Tehran is no longer deterred by fear of an American or European attack, Yadlin explained in his briefing Wednesday. Its leaders are standing by to see what rewards are on offer from US president Barack Obama for improving Washington-Tehran and how they may profit in strategic, diplomatic and economic terms. If the American incentives fall short, Tehran can push ahead with its nuclear weapon.

In his briefing, Yadlin avoided pointing out that Obama's projected rewards for Tehran would be at the expense of Israel's strategic standing or even its military might. This awareness has prompted the sharply conflicting US and Israel intelligence evaluations of the point at which Iran's nuclear bomb program stands at present.

While the AMAN chief says the capability is there but not yet fulfilled, the Americans speak of a timeline of 1-5 years or more.

Until now, both Western and Israeli experts maintained Iran has not yet acquired the technology for mounting nuclear warheads on missiles. Yadlin now reveals Tehran is already there, a conclusion reached after the Iranians sent their first earth satellite, Omid, into space on Jan. 3. The launch meant that Iran can deliver nuclear warheads by ballistic missile at at any point on earth.

------------------------------
Obama is weighing military, diplomatic cooperation with Tehran

The additional "gestures" Barack Obama's spokesmen promised Iran would follow on the presidential new year message may presage a dramatic U-turn on Iran, including even an astonishing offer of US-Iranian military and diplomatic cooperation - that is if the Islamic Republic decides to play ball.

AoA!

Congrats to Iran

New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) Amid growing concerns over the instability in Afghanistan, India and Iran today reviewed the situation in that country and exchanged views on the threat posed by terrorism emanating from the region.
The issue was discussed in detail during a meeting between National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Saeed Jalili.

Jalili was on a day-long visit here at the invitation of Narayanan. He also called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The two officials also deliberated threadbare the issue of terrorism emanating from the region which has raised concerns across the world.(Lol! Some of the controls are sitting in Iran!)

Significantly, the visit comes a day after US President Barack Obama unveiled Washington's new Af-Pak strategy which entails increasing troops in Afghanistan and stepping up financial aid to Pakistan.

Obama had talked about establishing a new contact group comprising Iran, India, and other countries in the region to deal with the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Narayanan and Jalili also conducted a strategic review of India-Iran relations and explored prospects for their further expansion.

The Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is also understood to have come up for discussion when the two officials dwelled upon the issue of energy security.

In their wide-ranging talks, Narayanan and Jalili also covered other regional and international matters. PTI