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Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Begins Delivery of Tor-M1 Air Defense Missile Systems to Iran
Russia has begun deliveries of the Tor-M1 air defence rocket system to Iran, Russian news agencies quoted military industry sources as saying, in the latest sign of a Russian-US rift over Iran.
“Deliveries of the Tor-M1 have begun. The first systems have already been delivered to Tehran,” ITAR-TASS quoted an unnamed, high-ranking source as saying Friday.
The United States has pressed Russia to halt military sales to Iran, which Washington accuses of harbouring secret plans to build a nuclear weapon.
Moscow has consistently defended its weapons trade with Iran. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said the contract for 29 rocket systems, signed in December last year, was legitimate because the Tor-M1 has a purely defensive role.
ITAR-TASS reported that the rockets were to be deployed around Iran’s nuclear sites, including the still incomplete, Russian-built atomic power station at Bushehr.
Right.
A defensive system to be ULTIMATELY used against Israel and the United States. This Russian DEAL with the Iranians has been in the making for almost a year. A brief history is here.
In the meantime, the Russians and Chinese continue to stall a sanctions resolution in the United Nations Security Council. Could it be that Iran has NOT paid Russia? Or does Russia wish to guarantee delivery?
ProbablyIn August, Washington announced sanctions against several companies, including Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport, for supplying technology to Iran that could allegedly be used to develop missile technology and weapons of mass destruction.
Under the sanctions no US company can deal with foreign companies on the sanctions list for two years.
A spokesman for Rosoboronexport contacted by AFP would not confirm or deny the reports about the Tor-M1 delivery, which were also issued by the Interfax news agency.
So, should the United States and Israel interdict these systems before they are fully deployed?
And involve Russia?
Depends upon the “POINT OF NO RETURN.”
Russia and China are NOT our friends but will they go to war with America to protect trade with Iran?
Doubtful – especially since the United States at the outbreak of hostilities would take the Iranian oil fields, and cut off oil to China.
But, Rome is burning while President Bush and Condoleezza Rice FIDDLE in the United Nations.
Stay tuned…….
Hugh Hewitt has Iran, Russia, and The Security Council Mirage
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Iran Nuclear Watch: IAEA Waives Decision on Aid for Iran’s Arak Nuclear Reactor
Iran Nuclear Watch: Robert Mugabe – Iran, Zimbabwe “THINK ALIKEâ€
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Replacing Tehran Nuclear Reactor With Heavy Water Arak Reactor
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Continues to Disagree on Iran SanctionsMichael Ramirez on Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad – Iran “Will Resist to the Endâ€
Cox & Forkum: Flashback – “PEACE IN OUR TIMEâ€
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad – Iran Will Soon Celebrate Completion of its Nuclear Fuel Program
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad – “Israel’s Destruction NEARâ€
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Blasts U.N. Security Council
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Broadcasts Drone Footage of United States Carrier
Iran Nuclear Watch: Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh – Strike on Iran Possible
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Won’t Bargain Over Bushehr
Iran Nuclear Watch: A Military Option
Iran Nuclear Watch: Six Arab States Want to Go Nuclear
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Test Fires Three New Missiles in the Gulf
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia and China Say NO to United Nations Iran Sanction Resolution
The Natanz uranium enrichment complex in Natanz is pictured in this January 2, 2006 satellite image.
Technorati Tags: Iran, Ahmadinejad
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Day By Day by Chris Muir November 24, 2006
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Mark Steyn Watch: The Last Youth Standing
Mark and Claremont Institute President and ballistic missile expert, Brian T. Kennedy, December 2005. Photograph by Flap.
Western Standard: The Last Youth Standing or the Free Republic
Read it all
What the West and Islam share are elites detached from their own demographic realitiesSo many of our present woes are due to thinking we know things. In the case of Palestine, however, it requires an almost absurd suspension of disbelief. When Condi Rice speaks of an “educated population” with a “culture of civil society,” I’m sure we’ve all met Palestinians like that, in Montreal and Los Angeles and London–everywhere except Palestine. In Gaza, as I note in my book, the median age of the population is 15.8 years. Count back 15.8 years and you come to early 1991. In other words, a huge swathe of the population have spent their entire life in the depraved death cult of the post-Oslo Arafatist-Hamas squat. Not much of a “culture of civil society” there. Not much evidence that many of them “just want a better life.” Au contraire, given the choice between “a better life” and blowing up Jews, quite a big chunk of the teenage and twentysomething males in Gaza would regard the latter as a lot more fun.
How could a smart woman like Dr. Rice be so misled on this point? No doubt she’s seen all those Palestinian spokespersons–Saeb Erekat, Hanan Ashrawi–who’ve filled up the CNN and BBC airwaves decade in, decade out. No doubt she’s met many soft-spoken “Palestinian intellectuals”–the territories’ principal export, one might easily believe, given from the number who’ve turned up in CBC interview chairs over the years. But they don’t speak for their people.
A few months after 9/11, I visited the Muslim slums of France. They’re ugly dehumanizing places, and obviously I would rather have been hosting Steyn One on One with Jacques Chirac at the Elysée Palace. But in the last four-and-a-half years those alienated anonymous “youths” (as the papers refer to them) have been a central fact of French life–whether lobbing Molotov cocktails into police stations or torching buses and leaving passengers with third-degree burns. That’s the reality. And everything Chirac and de Villepin and even Sarkozy have proposed has been a delusion: like Condi Rice, they thought that they knew. But the rioting youths knew better.
The future will be determined by those youths in the European suburbs, by legions of teenagers in Gaza, by the angry platoons of the Pakistani madrassahs.
And in each case, General Musharraf, Mahmoud Abbas, Jacques Chirac and even Tony Blair will do their best to stay on the right side. The problem is not a lack of leadership, but the leadership’s lack of followers.
Indeed.
And when Western Europe wakes up in a decade they will discover that they have been overrun by the Islamic demographic hordes. But, is there hope – witness the recent Dutch elections?
Doubtful
Europe is a done deal. Eurabia will soon be the reality.
America will have to deal with these Jihadist youths alone.
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Technorati Tags: MarkSteyn
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Michael Ramirez on Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Alcee Hastings
Hastings says he’s fit to lead intelligence panel
Competition for the post of chairman of the House Intelligence Committee intensified Wednesday with the release of a letter by Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.), who says he deserves the job despite the fact that as a federal judge he was convicted by the Senate and removed from the bench after being impeached for involvement in a bribery plot.
In a rambling letter sent to Democratic members of the House, Hastings lashed out at his critics, saying they were bent on “denying me a position I have certainly earned and am completely competent to perform.”
Hastings is, by seniority, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee, after Rep. Jane Harman of Venice. But Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the House’s incoming speaker, has indicated that when the Democrats take control in January, she plans to take Harman off the committee in favor of someone more critical of the Bush administration’s Iraq war policies.
With Harman gone, Hastings would be in line to become chairman of the panel, formally known as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. His past legal troubles, however, have raised questions about his fitness for the position, which involves safeguarding many of the nation’s most closely held spy secrets.
Come on Nancy!
You know you want to appoint Alcee……….
But, you WILL wimp out.
Previous:
Nancy Pelosi Watch: Jane Harman for Chair of House Intelligence Committee?
Technorati Tags: NancyPelosi, JaneHarman, HouseIntelligenceCommittee, AlceeHastings
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Lebanon Watch: Hundreds of Thousands of Lebanese Mourn Pierre Gemayel – Attend Funeral
Mourners attend the funeral of assassinated Lebanese minister Pierre Gemayel in Beirut. Beirut was a sea of red and white flags as Lebanon turned out in a show of force for the funeral of the anti-Syrian minister, whose murder threatens to plunge the country deeper into political turmoil.
AP: Throngs mourn slain Lebanese official
Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese turned the funeral Thursday for a slain Christian government minister into a massive demonstration of anger against Syria and its allies.
The sprawling funeral for Pierre Gemayel reinvigorated suporters of the U.S.-backed government in a power struggle with Syrian-backed Hezbollah and its allies threatening to split this small Mideast nations along sectarian lines. Police estimated some 800,000 people participated in the rally and funeral.
“The second independence uprising was launched today for change and it will not stop,” Gemayel’s father, former President Amin Gemayel, told the crowd in downtown Beirut, speaking from behind a panel of bulletproof glass. “I pledge to you that we will soon take steps so that your efforts will not go in vain.”
The throng applauded as the coffin, wrapped in the flag of Gemayel’s Phalange Party — white with a green cedar emblem — was carried past the square to nearby St. George’s Cathedral, where the packed congregation sang hymns. The 34-year-old Gemayel’s wife wept in the church, leaning on his mother’s shoulder.
A Mulsim woman holds up a picture of assassinated Lebanese minister Pierre Gemayel during his funeral procession in Beirut. Beirut was a sea of red and white flags.
Lebanese mourners carry the coffin of Lebanon’s Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel during his funeral in Beirut November 23, 2006.
But in the wake of Gemayel’s slaying, Lebanon is polarized to a degree not seen since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, sharply divided between anti-Syrian Christians and Sunni Muslims and pro-Syrian Shiites. Many fear Thursday’s funeral could be the first round of demonstrations that could bring the political crisis into the volatile streets.
In Martyrs’ Square, men, women and children waved red, white and green Lebanese flags and posters of Gemayel with the slogans: “We want to live” and “Awaiting justice.”
Stay tuned as turmoil and unrest ferments in the streets of Beirut.
Michael Totten has Shove Your Civil War.
Nicole (L) and Patricia, the sister and wife respectively of Lebanon’s Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, cry during his funeral in Beirut.
Posters of Syrian President Bashar Assad are burned by anti-Syrian protesters during the funeral of assassinated Christian politician Pierre Gemayel, at the Martyrs square, in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday Nov. 23, 2006
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Lebanon Watch: Assassinated Lebanese Minister Pierre Gemayel to Be Buried Thursday
Global War on Terror Watch: Hezbollah and Syria Make a MOVE in Lebanon
Technorati Tags: Lebanon, PierreGemayel, Syria, Hezbollah, Israel
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Happy Thanksgiving 2006
Happy ThanksgivingFlap is THANKFUL for……
His God for having Created him….
His Country for bestowing many blessings of liberty…
His Family for the LOVE they share…
His Health which allows him quality of life…..
His Friends on and off line who share and bring much to Flap’s life…
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Day By Day by Chris Muir Movember 23, 2006
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Iran Nuclear Watch: IAEA Waives Decision on Aid for Iran’s Arak Nuclear Reactor
An aerial view of a heavy-water production plant, which went into operation despite U.N. demands that Iran roll back its nuclear program, in the central Iranian town of Arak, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2006.
AP: IAEA board agrees to deny Iran nuke aid
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency effectively agreed Wednesday to deny Iran technical help in building a plutonium-producing reactor but left room for Tehran to renew its request in two years, diplomats said.
A committee of the International Atomic Energy Agency forwarded a summary of three days of deliberations on 832 requests for technical aid to the full board, scheduled to meet Thursday.
That gathering was expected to waive a decision on Tehran’s request for aid for its Arak reactor. That, in effect, would deny IAEA money for Arak — at least for the next two years, after which new requests will be considered.
The two diplomats — from countries on opposing sides of the issue — had different interpretations of what the expected ruling would mean, reflecting the depth of the dispute. Both demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the topic with the media.
A European diplomat said the tentative agreement effectively meant that Iran’s request was turned down. Another diplomat, from a developing nation, said it meant that the issue remained on the table because it could be revisited.
“It certainly is not denied,” he said.
The committee summary noted that “several members expressed the need for caution regarding technical cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran.” They “expressed particular concern” over Arak, saying they could not approve other Iranian projects if aid for the reactor were approved, said the summary of the closed meeting, obtained by The Associated Press.
Now, why would Iran need help with the Arak Heavy Water Reactor pray tell?
PLUTONIUM FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. representative to the IAEA, said his country had no choice but to oppose aid to Arak, given past calls by the board for the project to be stopped, “the widespread distrust of Iran’s nuclear program and the risk of plutonium (being) diverted from this reactor for use in a (nuclear) weapon.”
In the meantime, Iran realizing the vote to be lost does the next best thing: BLAME ISRAEL.
Iran, meanwhile, used the gathering to criticize Israel, expressing “deep concern as a result of the threat of armed attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities and installations.”
“Recently the Zionist regime has augmented the campaign and threat,” said a Nov. 13 letter from Iran’s IAEA representative, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, obtained by the AP. The letter was attached to an IAEA document issued for the meeting saying Soltanieh had asked that his comments be circulated among delegates.
When the “POINT OF NO RETURN” is reached, Iran will not only have Israel but American bombs/missiles visiting Arak.
And Japan is aware of this and has pulled financing for any further Iranian projects – as had Switzerland (Credit Suisse Group and UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest banks) earlier in the year.
Stay tuned…..
A general view of the heavy water plant in Arak around 320 kms south of Tehran in August 2006. The UN atomic agency was moving at a meeting that has opened to heed US and European calls to put off helping Iran build a nuclear reactor that could provide plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: Robert Mugabe – Iran, Zimbabwe “THINK ALIKEâ€
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Replacing Tehran Nuclear Reactor With Heavy Water Arak Reactor
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Continues to Disagree on Iran SanctionsMichael Ramirez on Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad – Iran “Will Resist to the Endâ€
Cox & Forkum: Flashback – “PEACE IN OUR TIMEâ€
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad – Iran Will Soon Celebrate Completion of its Nuclear Fuel Program
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad – “Israel’s Destruction NEARâ€
Iran Nuclear Watch: Ahmadinejad Blasts U.N. Security Council
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Broadcasts Drone Footage of United States Carrier
Iran Nuclear Watch: Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh – Strike on Iran Possible
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Won’t Bargain Over Bushehr
Iran Nuclear Watch: A Military Option
Iran Nuclear Watch: Six Arab States Want to Go Nuclear
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Test Fires Three New Missiles in the Gulf
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia and China Say NO to United Nations Iran Sanction Resolution
The Natanz uranium enrichment complex in Natanz is pictured in this January 2, 2006 satellite image.
Technorati Tags: Iran, Ahmadinejad
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Iran Watch: Iran Touts Weekend Summit with Iraq and Syria
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, center, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, during an official meeting in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006. A photo of Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Khomeini, hangs on the wall.
AP: Iran touts own Iraq summit ahead of U.S.
Iran on Wednesday touted its weekend summit with the Iraqi and Syrian presidents, moving to secure a larger role in the region just as President Bush prepares to head to the Mideast for meetings on reducing American involvement in Iraq.
The Iranian parliamentary speaker, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that Saturday’s summit in Tehran is designed to bring Iran,
Syria and Iraq closer together. “We hope the summit will boost relations between the three countries,” he said.Iranian analyst Ahmad Bakhshayesh said the government has more specific aims.
“Iran wants to increase its influence in Iraq,” said Bakhshayesh, a professor of political science at Allameh University in Tehran. “It also wants to support the government in Iraq so it can stand on its own feet after the United States has withdrawn its forces.”
The editorial writer in the conservative Kayhan newspaper went further, writing in Wednesday’s edition that the summit would “shake the U.S. president” as he faces strong disapproval of his war strategy.
Um NO…….
Victor Davis Hanson has it RIGHT with So Close, so Far: no, no, no….
But why would either Damascus or Teheran wish to talk? The answer is plain. The former wants to profess to cool it a bit in destabilizing Iraq in exchange for us turning a blind eye in Lebanon; the latter wants to act like stopping the sending of agents of our destruction into Iraq in exchange for cooling our rhetoric about their bomb. What we would be doing in essence by “dialoguing†is saying to both the democracies in Lebanon and Israel, “Sorry, but we have to find a way out of Iraq, and these fascists will promise to turn away from us if they can turn on you.â€
All this is dressed up with realist “maturity†and “concern†but it would be consistent with those who brought us Iran-Contra, aid to both Iran and Iraq in their war, stopping before Baghdad, hugs with the House of Saud that paid money to those who killed Americans, and on and on. If Syria and Iran can be assured of a truce, that we won’t destabilize them at home or stop their adventurism abroad, then they might let us save face in Iraq. That they would ever honor such a deal is absurd, that we would ever believe they would is worse than absurd.
For five long years many of us have praised this administration’s constancy and idealism, in removing the Taliban and Saddam, and then staying on to do the hard, the easily caricatured work of democratization. The liberal hawks have long bailed. The paleos have turned venomous in their criticism. Many of the neo-cons have sought escape by blaming the flawed occupation for ruining their supposedly perfect three-week take-down of Saddam. But there are millions of us still out there who, Jacksonian in spirit, close ranks and will support our troops wherever they are. But we simply cannot ask Americans to die in Anbar province while talking to the Iranians and Syrians who are doing their best through surrogates in killing them.
Indeed……
And the President should make THIS CRYSTAL CLEAR to Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki when they meet in Jordan.
Stay tuned….
Technorati Tags: Iraq, Iran, Syria, VictorDavisHanson
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Lebanon Watch: Assassinated Lebanese Minister Pierre Gemayel to Be Buried Thursday
Lebanese mourners carry the coffin of Lebanon’s Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel past a poster of him in Bekfaya, Mount Lebanon, November 22, 2006.
Reuters: Leaders call Lebanese to slain minister’s funeral
Assassinated Lebanese minister Pierre Gemayel will be buried on Thursday and his allies have called for a large turnout to strengthen their hand in a political struggle with the Hezbollah-led opposition.
Gemayel, 34, was shot dead on Tuesday in the sixth killing of an anti-Syrian figure in less than two years.
The funeral is set to be an outpouring of anger at Damascus, which Gemayel’s supporters have blamed for the assassination.
Syria has condemned the killing and denied involvement.Leading members of the ruling majority have also blamed Damascus for Gemayel’s killing, seeing an attempt to derail plans for an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
A U.N. inquiry into the killing has implicated Lebanese and Syrian security officials. Syria denies involvement. The government has asked for U.N. help to investigate the Gemayel killing.
“I call on everybody who loves Rafik al-Hariri, everybody who wants the truth, the international tribunal and an end to the assassinations … to come out with us tomorrow,” Hariri’s son, Saad, told the Future Television.
Rice falls on the coffin of assassinated Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel (portrait) as it is carried through the Gemayels’ hometown Bikfaya, in the mountains northeast of Beirut. Lebanon was in turmoil as it began three days of mourning for Gemayel, gunned down in an attack that stoked fears the country may again be plunged into civil strife.
Will Lebanon break down into Civil War?
Perhaps and will Israel join the fray?
Possible, since the UNIFIL mission is a failure and Hezbollah continues to rearm. The Israel-Hezbollah 33 day War this summer was just a warm-up for a broader war that is on the brink of starting.
Stay tuned…….
Patricia Gemayel (C), wife of Lebanon’s Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, reacts as his coffin passes in a street in Bekfaya, Mount Lebanon November 22, 2006.
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Global War on Terror Watch: Hezbollah and Syria Make a MOVE in Lebanon
Technorati Tags: Lebanon, PierreGemayel, Syria, Hezbollah, Israel
