‘Iran waiting for Khamenei go-ahead to build atom bomb’

HAARETZ

Iran possesses the capability to build a nuclear weapon within one year as it has mastered the necessary technology, the Times of London reported on Monday. All that separates Tehran from arming itself with an atomic bomb is final approval from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Times quoted Western intelligence sources as saying the Iranians completed their research program to create weaponized uranium back in 2003.

Contrary to a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate report which claimed that Iran halted its nuclear activities because of the threat of an American invasion following the occupation of Iraq, the real reason for the halt was that the Iranians had figured out how to detonate a warhead that could be fitted on its long-range Shehab-3 missiles, according to the Times.

Should it so desire, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon within one year, in which it would need six months to produce enough enriched uranium and another six months to build a warhead, the Times of London said.

“If the Supreme Leader takes the decision [to build a bomb], we assess they have to enrich low-enriched uranium to highly-enriched uranium at the Natanz plant, which could take six months, depending on how many centrifuges are operating,” an intelligence source told the Times. “We don’t know if the decision was made yet.”

Aside from the Natanz plant, the source speculated that Iran may have built a number of small, secret facilities which store materials that can be developed for a nuclear bomb, the Times reported.

American officials briefed Israel last week on the administration’s ideas for intensifying sanctions against Iran if it fails to respond to U.S. President Barack Obama‘s offer of dialogue.

In his meeting with Israeli officials, U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones indicated that Tehran has until the UN General Assembly in the last week of September to respond. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates delivered a similar message during his visit here earlier this week. If no satisfactory answer is received, the Americans said, they would work to form an international coalition to impose harsh sanctions on Iran.

A senior source in Jerusalem said the American message to Israel in these talks was to “lower its profile” and refrain from “ranting and raving” about Iran in public until the international evaluation on Iran takes place at the end of September. “Until that date, we must give diplomacy a chance,” the official said.

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Intelligence Warns Israel is now an ‘Obstacle to Obama’

by Gil Ronenif

(IsraelNN.com) According to a classified intelligence assessment handed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama and his senior advisors wish to “incrementally diminish U.S. strategic cooperation with Israel.”

A report in World Tribune quoted an Israeli source familiar with the intelligence assessment who said that “Obama wants to make friends with our worst enemies and [those who were] until now the worst enemies of the United States. Under this policy,” the source added, “we are more than irrelevant. We have become an obstacle.”

According to the report, which has not been corroborated by news sources other than World Tribune, Israeli sources said the U.S. Administration would reject Israel’s intelligence opinions on Iran and Syria while advancing the Obama plan to reconcile with the two states, although both were listed as state sponsors of terrorism by the U.S. State Department.

The Israeli intelligence document reportedly predicted that Obama would maintain his policy of appeasing Iran and Syria through 2010. It determined that Obama is convinced that appeasing Iran and Syria would make a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan possible.

Pressure on Israel
“Obama will want to show Iran, Syria and radical Muslims that the United States could pressure Israel on a strategic level,” the source said. “The pressure has already begun and will intensify throughout the next year or two.”

At the same time, the intelligence officials estimated that Obama would restrict U.S. arms exports to Israel in an effort to deny it systems that it could use in a raid on Iran or Syria. The intelligence sources said this policy was begun during the last year of the Bush administration and predicted that it would intensify under Obama.

Carter: US and Syria Close to Full Relations
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Tuesday that the U.S. and Syria are close to restoring full diplomatic ties. “Syrian President Bashar Assad is very eager to restore full ties with Washington,” Carter told Haaretz. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens this year,” he added, speaking on the phone from Quito, Ecuador, at the start of a four-nation South American trip.

Carter plans to meet Assad in Syria in early June.

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad said Tuesday that Obama would face “a serious crisis in the Middle East” if he does not fix the mistakes made by his predecessor George W. Bush, within a year’s time.

On a visit to Vienna after meeting Austrian leaders and intellectuals, Assad called on the U.S. to rapidly withdraw its troops from Iraq. This, he claimed, would resolve “50 per cent of the problem,” Austrian news agency APA reported.

However, by appeasing Iran and Syria the U.S. is risking alienating Egypt.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned Egypt’s rivals in the Middle East Wednesday that he would not tolerate what he called their “tampering with security and stability” in his country, a reference to Iran and the Hizbullah terror militia that it supports.

Mubarak’s comments were his the most strongly worded ones since Egypt accused the Hizbullah of plotting attacks in the country. They were also meant to send a strong message to the group’s backers in Iran.