Thanks, North Korea, for Reminding Us to Bomb Iran | The Blog on Obama: White House Dossier

Be sure to see the full article by Keith Koffler at the link below.

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2010/11/23/north-korea-reminding-bomb-iran

by Keith Koffler on November 23, 2010, 11:29 am

If you want to have some idea what the world will look like once Iran gets nuclear weapons, have a look-see below. It’s our friend Kim Jong-Il, the Dear Leader, or his son, Baby Jerk, lobbing bombs at South Koreans on an island near the border.



So far, two South Korean soldiers have been killed, and more than a dozen soldier injured, along with a few civilians. The North Koreans can do this, because they have nuclear weapons. Here is why they have nuclear weapons:

That’s right, it was this guy who negotiated the “Agreed Framework” with North Korea in 1994 that gave them the cover to develop their uranium enrichment program.
So now North Korea gets to blow up South Korean ships – as they did in March, killing 46 sailors – and attack South Korean islands with impunity. Because there ain’t much we can do about it. Oh wait, maybe there are a few things.

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Iran inks deal, may avoid sanctions

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Umm? Like Turkey is any better?
It's just closer to Israel.

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, center, joins hands with his Brazilian counterpart Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, second left, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after the three nations signed a nuclear fuel swap deal in Tehran on Monday. TEHRAN - Iran agreed Monday to ship most of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in a surprise nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff over the country's disputed atomic program and deflate a U.S.-led push for tougher sanctions. "Given Iran's repeated failure to live up to its own commitments, and the need to address fundamental issues related to Iran's nuclear program, the United States and international community continue to have serious concerns," press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. Britain's government said it was awaiting confirmation of the reports on Iran's deal with Turkey and insisted it remains committed to new sanctions against Tehran.

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Jim Woolsey: Nuclear Iran 'Extremely' Likely

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clipped from newsmax.com The likelihood that Iran will have a nuclear weapon in a year or less is “extremely high,” former Central Intelligence Director James R. Woolsey tells Newsmax. “I don’t think Iran has had much interest in anything except a nuclear weapon with their nuclear program,” Woolsey says. “Most of the estimates I’m hearing and was hearing last winter in Israel talk about sometime late this year, early next, for the possibility of a relatively primitive nuclear weapon.” Such a weapon could be a “so-called shotgun design, which is very easy to do once you have the highly enriched uranium,” Woolsey notes. It could be “something that could be detonated up in the northern desert of Iran and have a mushroom cloud and radioactivity, and everyone would say they're now a nuclear power.” That sort of weapon could be less than a year away, Woolsey says.

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U.S., allies denounce Iran's decision to make higher grade of enriched uranium

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clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Iran came under renewed attack Wednesday for its decision to make a higher grade of enriched uranium, a move that weapons experts say would dramatically shorten the country's path to nuclear weapons. The United States and several European allies took turns denouncing Iran's behavior at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, and a U.S. diplomat warned that new U.N. sanctions may be inevitable. "Iran seems determined to defy, obfuscate and stymie," said Ambassador Glyn Davies, head of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Davies was blunt about Iran's plans to increase the enrichment level for some of its uranium from less than 5 percent, suitable for nuclear power reactors, to nearly 20 percent, calling it an "an escalatory move, in blatant and direct violation" of U.N. resolutions. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying the higher-grade uranium would be used to fuel a reactor that makes medical isotopes.

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Iran Willing to Swap Nuclear Fuel Inside Iran

clipped from www1.voanews.com Iran says it is willing to swap its low-enriched uranium for more highly processed nuclear fuel, but the exchange must happen on Iranian territory. The Iranian government made the offer in a document released Tuesday. It is the first formal response to a proposal by the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran to ship its uranium abroad to be processed into fuel for an Iranian nuclear research reactor. Earlier this month, Iran said it has begun enriching uranium to a higher level, a process that world powers fear could give Iran the capability to build a nuclear weapon. The United States and other world powers have been calling for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran because of its uranium enrichment activity. Meanwhile, China on Tuesday repeated its call for a diplomatic solution to the dispute. Tehran's other traditional ally on the Security Council, Russia, has recently shown willingness to take a stronger stance against the Islamic Republic.

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Russia, US, France rap Iran's nuclear 'escalation'

clipped from www.ynetnews.com World powers send letter to UN nuclear watchdog in response to Tehran's launch last week of higher-grade enrichment. Iranian President Ahmadinejad says any country which tries to impose new sanctions on Islamic Republic will regret its actions Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday talks were still going on over a proposed nuclear fuel swap and any country which tried to impose new sanctions on Iran would regret its actions. He was speaking a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought backing from oil giant Saudi Arabia to help win Chinese support for additional sanctions. Meanwhile, a joint US-Russian-French letter obtained by Reuters on Tuesday said that "Iran's move to escalate uranium enrichment is unjustified because a draft nuclear deal it has snubbed lists guarantees for Tehran's benefit." PM: Iranian nukes will spread to Turkey, Egypt / Ahmadinejad: Sanctions will not harm Iran

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Iranian President Orders Enrichment

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clipped from online.wsj.com Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered his country's nuclear agency to begin enriching uranium for use in a medical-research reactor, ratcheting up Tehran's defiance over Western demands that it curb its nuclear ambitions. The statement was carried Sunday on state TV as the country celebrates the 31st anniversary of the Iranian revolution. It came amid a flurry of announcements in which Mr. Ahmadinejad has attempted to project an image of strength, even as the regime faces the threat of further domestic unrest later this week. It also seemed to contradict Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements last week that Iran was willing to embrace a deal brokered last year by the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran to ship the bulk of its lower enriched uranium overseas to be further enriched to the 20% purity level needed for its medical reactor.

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Petraeus says strike on Iran could spark nationalism | Reuters

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• Petraeus says strike on Iran could spark nationalism | Reuters

  "A military strike on Iran could have the unintended consequence of stirring nationalist sentiment to the benefit of Tehran's hard-line government, U.S. General David Petraeus told Reuters. Iran's June election gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term but sparked the worst internal crisis in the Islamic Republic's history, putting internal pressure on a government already facing the threat of more sanctions over its nuclear program. "It's possible (a strike) could be used to play to nationalist tendencies," Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command region, which includes Iran, said in an interview this week. "There is certainly a history, in other countries, of fairly autocratic regimes almost creating incidents that inflame nationalist sentiment. So that could be among the many different, second, third, or even fourth order effects (of a strike)." Tensions over Iran's nuclear program have set off speculation that Israel could make good on veiled threats to hit its arch-foe pre-emptively. But Israel's envoy to Washington said in December the U.S.-Israeli dialogue on Iran has not reached the point of discussing the military option. U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have warned that any strike on Iran would not stop the Islamic Republic from pursuing nuclear weapons. Instead, it would only delay Tehran, an opinion Petraeus said he shared. Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told Congress on Tuesday that Iran was keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons but that it remained unclear whether Tehran had the political will to do so. Petraeus, commenting on advances of Iran's nuclear program, said: "On the one hand, there is no question that there has been a continuation of various aspects of the nuclear program but I'm not sure it has always proceeded as rapidly as has been projected at various times." GRADUAL BOOST IN DEFENSES Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran was ready to send its enriched uranium abroad in exchange for nuclear fuel under a pl

  tags: Iran, Islam, Muslim, US, Government, Al-Qaeda, Nuclear, missles, strike

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Officials: Iran responds to fuel swap offer - Yahoo! News

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• Officials: Iran responds to fuel swap offer - Yahoo! News

  "VIENNA – Iran has formally responded to a nuclear fuel swap proposal backed by the world's major powers with a counteroffer effectively rejecting their demand that Tehran export most of the material it would need to make a warhead, diplomats said Tuesday. For months, Iranian officials have used the media to criticize the plan and offer alternatives to one of its main conditions — that the Islamic republic ship out most of its stock of enriched uranium and then wait for up to a year for its return in the form of fuel rods for its Tehran research reactor. While critical of such statements, the United States and its allies said they did not constitute a formal response to the plan, first drawn up in early October in a landmark meeting in Geneva between Iran and the six world powers, and then refined later that month in Vienna talks among Iran, the U.S., Russia and France. The diplomats told The Associated Press that Iran first submitted such a written formal response to the International Atomic Energy Agency earlier this month in a Jan. 6 meeting between Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's chief representative to the IAEA, and agency chief Yukiya Amano. The IAEA-brokered talks in Vienna came up with a draft proposal that would take 70 percent of Iran's low-enriched uranium to reduce its stockpile of material that could be enriched to a higher level, and possibly be used to make nuclear weapons."

  tags: Muslim, Islam, Global, News, UN, Iran, Nuclear, Missle, officials, swap, Military

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