Lindsey Graham Slams Obama On Terrorism: "Neuter Iran"

GOP Senator Lindsey Graham: Consider Neutering Iran's "Ability To Wage War"

A leading Senate Republican voice on defense issues said Saturday the United States should consider neutering Iran's navy and air force if Tehran does not halt its nuclear program.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, told reporters that there will come a point where Iran's nuclear program will reach the state that a conventional limited air strike "won't take them out."

"We're probably even past that point," he said.

"Instead of a surgical strike on their nuclear infrastructure, I think we're to the point now that you have to really neuter the regime's ability to wage war against us and our allies. And that's a different military scenario. It's not a ground invasion but it certainly destroys the ability of the regime to strike back."

The United States believes Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing nuclear weapons. Iran claims its program is for peaceful purposes.

The senator said that if the United States did attack Iran's navy and air force, Iran could retaliate with unconventional attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and launch terrorist attacks in other parts of the world.

"You can expect that," he said. "You can expect, for a period of time, all hell to break loose. You must have to almost plan for that. And weigh that against the idea of a nuclear-armed Iran and what that means to the future of the world."

Graham told reporters he believes there still is time for economic sanctions to work, but he says the sanctions currently in place are not "crippling."

"If [the Iranians] don't believe we will hit the military, if they believe that's not a possibility, then I think our ability to turn this around is very limited with sanctions."

President Obama should be "bolder," he said, targeting Iran's refined petroleum products, which he said is a key economic vulnerability of the regime.

Graham said he wishes Obama "would call in our Russian and Chinese friends and say, 'Listen, we're all in this together. There is no upside to a nuclear-armed Iran. Containment doesn't work. It's a nightmare for all of us. Please help me. If you don't, I'm going to have to go another way' and just let everybody begin to know that the other way is a growing reality.'"

Graham said he does not know when Iran will achieve "redundant" nuclear capability, "but I think it's probably not multiple years."

"This whole debate about how long -- I can't give you a definitive answer," he said, "but I can tell you every day is a day to be used one way or the other. And every day that goes by and we're indifferent, and less decisive, then that's a day lost."

Nuclear talks between Iran and world powers have been stalled since October 1, 2009, when the two sides last met in Geneva, Switzerland.

The European Union has proposed the two sides meet again in mid-November back in Geneva. Manouchehr Mottaki, Iranian foreign minister, has said that November 15 had been suggested for a meeting date.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran is ready to hold talks, but has warned that the Islamic republic won't yield any of its international rights to peaceful nuclear energy development, according to reports by state media.

A Council on Foreign Relations paper published in March said two developments raised suspicions over whether Iran's program is just for peaceful purposes.

It cites the September 2009 "revelation of a second uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom --constructed under the radar of international inspectors," and a U.N. nuclear agency report that "detailed Iran's potential for producing a nuclear weapon, including further fuel enrichment and plans for developing a missile-ready warhead."




"Neuter" Iran Over Nukes, U.S. Senator Says


A U.S. lawmaker sent ripples through an international audience Saturday saying his country should be prepared to launch a military attack on Iran that would "neuter" the hard line regime.

But Defence Minister Peter MacKay, who was in attendance, said a military attack on Iran would have negative fallout, and that international sanctions are preferable.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Saturday his party would support military action against Iran that would destroy its ability to fight back while allowing its people to rise up.

Graham surprised attendees at the Halifax International Security Forum with his hawkish rhetoric, saying an attack could cripple Iran's nuclear program as well as its armed forces.

The U.S. and its Western allies, including Canada, believe Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Tehran maintains it is peacefully pursuing nuclear power to meet its energy needs.

Graham noted that international sanctions are beginning to work on Iran, but says U.S. President Barack Obama should make it "abundantly clear" that all options are on the table.

"So my view of military force would be not to just neutralize their nuclear program, which are probably dispersed and hardened, but to sink their navy, destroy their air force and deliver a decisive blow to the Revolutionary Guard," Graham told a panel.

"In other words, neuter that regime."

Graham said the last thing his country needs is another war, but the last thing the world needs is a nuclear-armed Iran.

Asked about Graham's tough proposal, MacKay told a later panel: "No question there would be a negative reaction to that course of action. Although I know that has perhaps provoked some of the hottest discussions in the hallways."

MacKay said collective international sanctions can be used to fight Iran and change the country's thinking. He said sanctions are aimed at the regime, not its people.

Graham created the biggest buzz at the second annual security conference that MacKay is hosting in his home province. Graham serves on six senate committees, including armed services, homeland security and veterans' affairs. He also serves in the U.S. military as an active member of the Air Force reserves.

"Nobody would like to see the sanctions work any more than I would because I'm still in the military and I get to meet these young men and women on a regular basis and I know what it's been like for the last nine years," he told an audience of foreign politicians, diplomats and academics.

"And if you use military force, if sanctions are not going to work, and a year from now it's pretty clear they're not going to work, what do our friends in Israel do?"

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said "we are still in the stage of diplomacy and sanctions" but that Iran remains a threat.

"Based on experience and looking at the example they're using, which is probably the North Korean example, you can easily see the basic objective is to defy, defeat and deter the whole world," said Barak.

"I will be happy . . . to end up finding myself wrong, based on future developments, but I wonder whether this is the case."

A fellow U.S. senator, Democrat Mark Udall, said he wasn't willing to completely support Graham because what he was advocating would have "worldwide repercussions."

"I'm not willing to put my support behind that step here in a theoretical context, but I think you've got to keep every option on the table and let the Iranian regime know that we're deadly serious, not just as the United States of America, but as a world community," Udall told Graham and his other fellow panelists.


Sources: CNN, CTV, News.Ca.Msn, Youtube

Obama Warns Global Leaders Of Nuke Terrorism Dangers

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President Obama Warns Against Threat Of Nuclear Terrorism


As the 47-country Nuclear Security Summit opened in Washington this morning, President Barack Obama warned that only a concerted effort by the global community can head off the looming threat of nuclear terrorism.

"Two decades after the end of the Cold War, we face a cruel irony of history — the risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of [a] nuclear attack has gone up," Obama said in a brief speech to the summit’s first formal session. "It is increasingly clear that the danger of nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to global security — to our collective security."

Obama told the more than three dozen heads of state who accepted his invitation for the Washington conclave that the nuclear terrorism issue is more threatening both for practical reasons and because those seeking the weapons are more ruthless.

"Just the smallest amount of plutonium — about the size of an apple — could kill and injure hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeed, they would surely use it. Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world — causing extraordinary loss of life and striking a major blow at global peace and stability," Obama said.

Obama also announced that the next nuclear security summit will be held in South Korea in 2012. Overall, it’s a somewhat less ambitious schedule than Obama promised during his campaign for the White House, when he vowed to hold such a summit during his first year in office and every year thereafter.

Obama's initial remarks to the summit included something of a renunciation of what his aides and many abroad view as the go-it-alone approach the U.S. took to foreign policy issues under President George W. Bush.

"I believe strongly that the problems of the 21st century cannot be solved by any one nation acting in isolation — they must be solved by all of us coming together," Obama declared.

Obama called for concrete actions, and not just rhetoric, from the countries at the summit. Those nations attending were required to make a significant, specific promise to advance the meeting's goal. White House officials are already hailing Chile's return of nuclear materials to the U.S., Canada's promise to return similar materials and Ukraine's pledge to get rid of all highly enriched uranium on its soil.


Sources: MSNBC, Politico

Bloggingheads: Iran's Military State, Opposition Movement

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Iran's Military Dictatorship Puts Israel & World's Security In Precarious Position

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Iran Becoming Military Dictatorship


U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship, a new U.S. accusation in the midst of rising tensions with Iran over its nuclear ambitions and crack down on anti-government protesters.

Speaking to Arab students at Carnegie Mellon's Doha campus, Clinton said Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps appears to have gained so much power that it effectively is supplanting the government.

"Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," she said. "That is our view."

Last week the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was freezing the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of a Revolutionary Guard general and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction firm he runs because of their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

The Revolutionary Guard has long been a pillar of Iran's regime as a force separate from the ordinary armed forces. The Guard now has a hand in every critical area including missile development, oil resources, dam building, road construction, telecommunications and nuclear technology.

It also has absorbed the paramilitary Basij as a full-fledged part of its command structure — giving the militia greater funding and a stronger presence in Iran's internal politics.

Serious Negotiations

In her Doha appearance, Clinton also said she foresees a possible breakthrough soon in stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

"I'm hopeful that this year will see the commencement of serious negotiations that will cover every issue that is outstanding," she said, adding that "everyone is anticipating" progress after more than a year of impasse between the negotiating parties.

The peace talks broke down in late 2008 with Israel's incursion into Gaza, which had launched rocket attacks on Israeli targets.

Clinton spoke in an interview with the Al-Jazeera TV network before a live audience of mostly Arab students at Carnegie Mellon's Doha campus.

In remarks in the Qatari capital on Sunday, Clinton said she and the president are disappointed that the administration's efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks had failed thus far.

A Carnegie Mellon audience member who identified himself as an Iranian expatriate asked Clinton if the U.S. would be present in Iraq if Iraq had no oil resources. She said the U.S. wants a normal relationship with the Iraqi government, regardless of its natural resources.

"When we leave Iraq, as has been agreed to, with our military — and we're on schedule to do that — we will hopefully have a relationship with Iraq as we have with any other country," she said. On Sunday she said the number of U.S. troops in Iraq had fallen this month below 100,000 and that the United States is on track to have all combat troops out of the country by the end of summer.

Reflecting the extent of concern in the Persian Gulf region about a U.S. confrontation with Iran, another member of the audience asked Clinton about the outlook for improving relations with Tehran. Clinton reiterated the Obama's administration view that Iran has violated its international obligation to use nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes. And she regretted that Iran has not accepted U.S. offers of nuclear negotiations.

"Unfortunately, there has not been the kind of response that we had hope for from the Iranian leadership," she said.

Clinton makes a point of raising the topic of women and girls' rights whenever she travels abroad. In a speech Sunday to a forum on U.S.-Muslim relations, she stressed it in the context of U.S. support for nations seeking to build democratic institutions.

"As nations strive to build and strengthen governments that reflect the will of their people, grounded in their own traditions, they can count on the United States to be their partner," she said. "But the will of the people means the will of all the people, men and women. Women's rights are an issue of singular importance to me personally and as secretary of state."

She also cited the issue of violence against women, without mentioning any specific country.

"Even today, in 2010, women are still targets of violence," she said Sunday. "And all too often, religion might be used to justify it. But there is never a justification for violence against women. It is not cultural. It is criminal. And it is up to religious leaders to take a stand for women, to call for an end to honor killings, child marriages, domestic and gender-based violence."

Later Monday, Clinton was flying to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for a meeting with King Abdullah and a session with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

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Iran Is Now A Nuclear State


President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Thursday that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher level, saying his country will not be bullied by the West into curtailing its nuclear program a day after the U.S. imposed new sanctions.

Ahmadinejad reiterated to hundreds of thousands of cheering Iranians on the anniversary of the 1979 foundation of the Islamic republic that the country was now a "nuclear state," an announcement he's made before. He insisted that Iran had no intention of building nuclear weapons.

It was not clear how much enriched material had actually been produced just two days after the process was announced to have started.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs dismissed Iran's claims, saying that country's leadership has made a series of statement based on politics, not physics.

The claim of new progress in Iran's nuclear program came a day after the U.S. Treasury Department imposed new sanctions, freezing the assets in U.S. jurisdiction of a Revolutionary Guard general and four subsidiaries of a construction firm he runs.

David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said that any 20-percent enriched uranium produced just a few days after the start of the process would be "a tiny amount."

The United States and some of its allies accuse Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to build nuclear weapons but Tehran denies the charge, saying the program is just geared toward generating electricity.

"I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first package of 20 percent fuel was produced and provided to the scientists," he said.

Enriching uranium produces fuel for nuclear power plants but can also be used to create material for atomic weapons if enriched further to 90 percent or more.

"We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or 80 percent but we don't enrich (to this level) because we don't need it," he said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

Iran announced Tuesday it was beginning the process of enriching its uranium stockpile to a higher level. The international community reacted by discussing the imposition of new U.N. sanctions.

Revolutionary Guard assets frozen

The U.S. Treasury Department went ahead on Wednesday and froze the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of a Revolutionary Guard general and four subsidiaries of a construction firm he runs for their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

Tehran has said it wants to further enrich the uranium — which is still substantially below the 90 percent plus level used in the fissile core of nuclear warheads — as a part of a plan to fuel its research reactor that provides medical isotopes to hundreds of thousands of Iranians undergoing cancer treatment.

But the West says Tehran is not capable of turning the material into the fuel rods needed by the reactor. Instead it fears that Iran wants to enrich the uranium to make nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad restated Iran's position that it was not seeking to build nuclear weapons.

"When we say we do not manufacture the bomb, we mean it, and we do not believe in manufacturing a bomb," he told the crowd. "If we wanted to manufacture a bomb, we would announce it."

"We told them the Iranian nation will never give in to bullying and illogical remarks," Ahmadinejad added.

Western powers blame Tehran for rejecting an internationally endorsed plan to defuse the situation by having Iran export its low enriched uranium for enrichment abroad and returned as fuel rods for the Tehran reactor.

Iran, in turn, asserts it had no choice but to start enriching to higher levels because its suggested changes to the international plan were rejected.

The president said Iran will triple the production of its low-enriched uranium in the future but didn't elaborate.

"God willing, daily production (of low enriched uranium) will be tripled," he said.

A confidential document from the U.N. nuclear agency shared Wednesday with The Associated Press said Iran's initial effort at higher enrichment is modest, using only a small amount of feedstock and a fraction of its capacities.


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Ahmdinejad Declares Iran To Be A Nuclear State...Where's Pres. Obama??

Ahmadinejad: Iran Is Now a Nuclear State



President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Thursday that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher level, saying his country will not be bullied by the West into curtailing its nuclear program a day after the U.S. imposed new sanctions.

Ahmadinejad reiterated to hundreds of thousands of cheering Iranians on the anniversary of the 1979 foundation of the Islamic republic that the country was now a "nuclear state," an announcement he's made before. He insisted that Iran had no intention of building nuclear weapons.

It was not clear how much enriched material had actually been produced just two days after the process was announced to have started.

David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said that any 20-percent enriched uranium produced just a few days after the start of the process would be "a tiny amount."

The United States and some of its allies accuse Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to build nuclear weapons but Tehran denies the charge, saying the program is just geared toward generating electricity.

"I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first package of 20 percent fuel was produced and provided to the scientists," he said.

Enriching uranium produces fuel for nuclear power plants but can also be used to create material for atomic weapons if enriched further to 90 percent or more.

"We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or 80 percent but we don't enrich (to this level) because we don't need it," he said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

Iran announced Tuesday it was beginning the process of enriching its uranium stockpile to a higher level. The international community reacted by discussing the imposition of new U.N. sanctions.

Revolutionary Guard assets frozen

The U.S. Treasury Department went ahead on Wednesday and froze the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of a Revolutionary Guard general and four subsidiaries of a construction firm he runs for their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

Tehran has said it wants to further enrich the uranium — which is still substantially below the 90 percent plus level used in the fissile core of nuclear warheads — as a part of a plan to fuel its research reactor that provides medical isotopes to hundreds of thousands of Iranians undergoing cancer treatment.

But the West says Tehran is not capable of turning the material into the fuel rods needed by the reactor. Instead it fears that Iran wants to enrich the uranium to make nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad restated Iran's position that it was not seeking to build nuclear weapons.

"When we say we do not manufacture the bomb, we mean it, and we do not believe in manufacturing a bomb," he told the crowd. "If we wanted to manufacture a bomb, we would announce it."

"We told them the Iranian nation will never give in to bullying and illogical remarks," Ahmadinejad added.

Western powers blame Tehran for rejecting an internationally endorsed plan to defuse the situation by having Iran export its low enriched uranium for enrichment abroad and returned as fuel rods for the Tehran reactor.

Iran, in turn, asserts it had no choice but to start enriching to higher levels because its suggested changes to the international plan were rejected.

The president said Iran will triple the production of its low-enriched uranium in the future but didn't elaborate.

"God willing, daily production (of low enriched uranium) will be tripled," he said.

A confidential document from the U.N. nuclear agency shared Wednesday with The Associated Press said Iran's initial effort at higher enrichment is modest, using only a small amount of feedstock and a fraction of its capacities.


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Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps

Secretary of Defense Gates Issues A Stern Warning To North Korea

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: "The policy of the U.S. has not changed. Our goal is complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and we will not accept North Korea as a Nuclear Weapons State. The transfer of Nuclear weapons or materials by North Korea to states or non-states entities would be considered a grave threat to the U.S. and our allies."

"We would hold North Korea fully accountable for the consequences of such actions."

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