Obama is Neville Chamberlain on steriods...

Iran tests missile with range that can hit Israel

image by rees

from Breitbart.com
May 20, 2009
By Ali Akbar Dareinia
Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran test-fired a missile capable of striking Israel, U.S. Mideast bases and Europe on Wednesday—a show of strength touted by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as he battles for re-election next month against more moderate opponents.

The U.S. responded by saying Iran must choose between destabilizing the Middle East or accepting the dialogue offered by President Barack Obama. The U.S. leader threatened earlier this week that Iran could face further international sanctions if it does not respond positively by year-end to U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program.

Israel said the test appeared to be Iran's response to a positive meeting on Monday between Obama and new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

U.S. officials confirmed the launch and Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in Washington that Iran is at a crossroads and must choose its course.

"They can either continue on this path of continued destabilization in the region or they can decide that they want to pursue relationships with the counties in the region and the United States that are more normalized," said Whitman. "Our concerns are obviously based on nuclear ambitions and the implications that long- and medium-range missiles have with respect to that," he added.

Alex Vatanka, a senior Middle East analyst at Jane's Information Group, said the test "does not change the strategic equation" in the region because Iran has had the ballistic missile capability to hit Israel and much of the Middle East for more than a decade with its Shahab missiles.

It was likely intended to send a message to the Obama administration that Iran cannot be bullied into talks and also to show the country's strength in hopes that would boost Ahmadinejad's popularity among voters in the June 12 election, Vatanka said.

Iran says its missile program is merely for defense and its space program is for scientific and surveillance purposes. It maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian energy uses only.

Tehran said the solid-fuel Sajjil-2 surface-to-surface missile has a range of about 1,200 miles. It is a new version of the Sajjil missile, which the country said it successfully tested late last year and has a similar range. Many analysts said the launch of the solid-fuel Sajjil was significant because such missiles are more accurate than liquid fuel missiles of similar range, such as Iran's Shahab-3.

"Defense Minister (Mostafa Mohammad Najjar) has informed me that the Sajjil-2 missile, which has very advanced technology, was launched from Semnan and it landed precisely on the target," state radio quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. He did not name any targets for the missile when he spoke during a visit to the city of Semnan, 125 miles east of the capital Tehran, where Iran's space program is centered.

Najjar said the Sajjil-2 differs from the Sajjil missile because it "is equipped with a new navigation system as well as precise and sophisticated sensors," according to Iran's official news agency.

Two U.S. officials confirmed the missile launch, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

"It appears the test was a success," one official said. "It appears they launched a medium-range missile."

Moshe Arens, a former Israeli defense minister who trained in the U.S. as an aerospace engineer, said Wednesday's test was apparently part of Iran's broader quest to develop more advanced missiles and nuclear capability.

"They're increasing their abilities to launch rockets of longer and longer range that go beyond Israel and into Europe and eventually will carry nuclear weapons," he said. "They're troublemakers and you have to deal with troublemakers."

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel's elimination, and the Jewish state has not ruled out a military strike to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat. The Israeli government has been skeptical of U.S. overtures to Iran, which have received a mixed response from Ahmadinejad.

The launch came just weeks before the vote that could influence Iran's response to the U.S. outreach. Two of the three candidates approved by Iran's constitutional watchdog to run in the June election are reformists who favor improving ties with the West.

The hard-line president has been criticized by his opponents and others for antagonizing the U.S. and mismanaging the country's faltering economy. On Wednesday, the constitutional watchdog approved three candidates to challenge Ahmadinejad, setting up a showdown between reformists and hard-liners.

Associated Press Writers Pamela Hess in Washington and Steve Weizman and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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Obama will be responsible for the next attack on the U.S.

from The National Review
May 19, 2009

The CIA's Methods Have Changed; Will the Results?

Tucked in the bottom of page A4 of the Washington Post, about the CIA "worrying about its future":

Another intelligence official, who also asked not to be identified, said waterboarding and other harsh techniques "were meant to get hardened terrorists to a point where they were willing to answer questions." That capability, the official said, "is now gone."

As a nation, we are placing our bet that these techniques are not necessary to get useful intelligence about al-Qaeda and the attacks it plans. If nothing happens, then the critics of these techniques will be vindicated; the proof will be in the pudding, so to speak.

But if there is another attack on American soil in the coming years, people will notice that we had no successful attacks on U.S. soil for more than seven years. And then we changed to a new administration, which changed the way our intelligence agencies operate. And then the results changed.

The public would not be unreasonable to conclude that there is a correlation there.

Europeans See No Need For Missile Defense Shield

article from Cheat-Seeking Missiles
image from Cheat-Seeking Missiles
by Laer
May 19th 2009

A Rousing Endorsement Of Experts

Europeans must be a happy bunch this morning because a team of Russian and American “experts” have determined that their continent needs no missile shield, and those apocalyptic Iranians and their full-bore nuclear development programs pose no risk to Europeans from Budapest to Bath.

The experts’ first finding, reported by WaPo is that the planned defense won’t be effective against the type of missiles the Iranians are likely to use. The second: It’ll be more than five years before the Iranians would be read to nuke Europe. Two questions: How long will it take to install the missile defense. And why not hire some other experts to use those five years to make the system effective against the kind of missiles the Iranians would use.

The experts then analyzed the Iranians’ crappy missiles, derived from crappy North Korean knock-offs of seriously outdated Russian sub-launched missiles, and conclude it would take six to eight years for the Iranians to get a launchable bomb and put it on a missile capable of hitting a European city. So no missile defense is needed, natch! Especially since the experts don’t think any U.S. system could knock out an Iranian - North Korean - Russian missile dating from the 1950s.

But the entire discussion is moot because of the experts’ final point: that the Iranians won’t nuke Europe anyway because it will ensure their self-destruction. How odd. Saner nations than Iran - the US and Russia - pursued or feared missile defense systems, even though the doctrine of mutually assured destruction was firmly in place between them, so why should the Europeans not have an insurance policy against Iranian lunacy?

I don’t think the Iranians are likely to try to hit Europe with a missile because so many other scenarios make more sense, not the least of which is simply providing a nuclear umbrella for its operatives in the Middle East. But if I were a European, I’d be more comfortable staking my future on a real missile defense than the opinions of experts.
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Khamenei: Don't vote for pro-Western candidates

This basically ensures that Ahmadinejad will be re-elected and that the threats to wipe Israel off the map will continue.
Rees

from The Jerusalem Post
May 18, 2009
By Associated Press
Teheran, Iran

Iran's supreme leader on Monday urged Iranians not to vote for pro-Western candidates in the June 12 presidential election, though he gave no clear indication of whether he was supporting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei holds ultimate power in Iran, at the top of the clerical hierarchy above elected figures. His position is crucial for any candidate to win the vote, though he has never made his choice public. While he has strongly praised Ahmadinejad in the past, he has at times rebuked him publicly.

He spoke Monday in a televised speech.

Three others are challenging Ahmadinejad in his bid for re-election. They include a conservative former Revolutionary Guards commander and two reformists.
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