BY MICHAEL RUBIN, COMMENTARY— It’s all well and good for the Obama administration to brag about how its diplomatic approach has brought European states onboard with sanctions on Iran, but as the White House grants waivers for countries to give them more time to disentangle themselves from their Iran investments, German companies are showing they…
BY YITZHAK BENHORIN, YNET— In his first appearance as president at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, a solemn President Barack Obama announced on Monday a new crackdown on Iran and Syria and said the world must never again allow hatred to take root into the “madness” of mass atrocities. The president announced new sanctions on…
BY REUTERS— Iran is investigating a suspected cyber attack on its main oil export terminal and on the Oil Ministry itself, Iranian industry sources said on Monday. A virus was detected inside the control systems of Kharg Island, the country’s largest crude oil export facility, but the terminal remained operational, a source at the National…
BY DEBKAFILE— In the direct, secret exchanges between the US and Iran which led up to the Istanbul talks with the six powers, on Saturday, April 14, President Barack Obama quietly backed off from his demand that Iran “come clean” on its nuclear activities and open up to international inspection, Debkafile reports. This concession paved…
BY HAARETZ— No country would dare attack Iran, a top officer in the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said on Monday, adding that Iranian forces planned to engage in more military drills in order to preserve their combat vigilance. The comments by Mohammad Pakpour, the head of the IRGC’s ground forces, came as Cmdr. Amy…
BY ELAD BENARI, ARUTZ 7— The heads of Israel’s defense system estimate that if Israel is targeted by missiles from neighboring countries during a theoretical war in 2012, 300 people will be killed in a three week period, according to a Channel 10 News report on Monday. The report said that the ministers in the…
BY YITZHAK BENHORIN, YNET— The upcoming talks between Tehran and the West offer a prime opportunity to break the deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program, a former Iranian negotiator said on Saturday. In an op-ed published by The Boston Globe, Iranian scholar and former diplomat Hossein Mousavian asserted “war or coercion are not the only two…
BY MARK PERRY, FOREIGN POLICY— In 2009, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Baku, Donald Lu, sent a cable to the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom titled “Azerbaijan’s discreet symbiosis with Israel.” The memo, later released by WikiLeaks, quotes Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev as describing his country’s relationship with the…
BY RON BEN-YISHAI, YNET— The United States is leaking information to the media in order to avert an Israeli strike in Iran: The US Administration recently shifted into high gear in its efforts to avert an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities by the end of the year. The flood of reports in the American…
BY CAROLINE GLICK— General Michael Hayden wrote an oped for CNN on Iran’s nuclear program and the disparity between the US and Israeli assessments of the threat it poses. Hayden served as the head of the NSA and the CIA under Bush 43. He now advises Mitt Romney. In his oped, Hayden backs Obama’s policy…