Iran poised to resume enrichment at deep Fordow facility

 

After Iran warned it will leave the nuclear accord unless benefits are forthcoming, an atomic energy official in Tehran said that uranium enrichment would resume at Fordow – if that happens.

AP Exclusive: Secret document lifts Iran nuke constraints

VIENNA (AP) — A document obtained by The Associated Press shows that key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will ease in slightly more than a decade, halving the time Tehran would need to build a bomb.

Iran: Cyber Superpower?

Introducing the sixth member of the cyber superpower club

The Stuxnet virus was about to make history. Transferred via USB into Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility in mid-2009, the virus went to work, subtly tearing down the facility’s infrastructure. What made this historical was not its digital potency, but the fact that this virus impacted the physical, slowly wreaking havoc on the centrifuges, causing major delays to Iran’s nuclear program—precisely as Stuxnet’s creators had planned. The worm gradually increased pressure in the centrifuges, bemusing Iranian scientists and engineers. Under the increasing pressure, the centrifuges wore out quickly, forcing Tehran to replace them.

It was mid-2010 before Iran caught on and was able to tackle the virus. But then something happened. Something that Stuxnet’s creators didn’t plan for. A seed was planted in the minds of the Iranian elite: a plan to develop an Iranian cyber program capable of defending Iranian tech and attacking that of its enemies.

Russia Will Help ‘Improve’ Iran Centrifuges, Iranian Nuclear Chief Says

Iran’s nuclear chief said Tuesday that Russia is prepared to help “enhance” the country’s uranium-enriching centrifuges.

Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that Ali Akbar Salehi, who heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, spoke of Russia’s cooperation following a meeting with the director of Moscow’s Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, Sergey Kirienko, in Vienna, Austria.

The Iran Nuclear Negotiations: U.S. Concession After U.S. Concession

Abstract

The Obama Administration is negotiating a bad deal in the Iran nuclear negotiations. It has violated every rule of good negotiating practice, making concession after concession on both major and minor issues. With each abandoned red line—whether enrichment, ballistic missiles, verification, or sanctions relief—the Administration has resorted to twisted logic and intellectually disingenuous explanations to justify its concessions. A good deal would deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability, prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon in a short amount of time, extend the breakout time, be verifiable, include phased relief of sanctions and guaranteed snap-back provisions. The Administration’s proposed deal fails on all counts.

Delivered July 7, 2015

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Since the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) was announced in November 2013, the outcome was clear: Iran would be recognized and accepted as a nuclear weapons threshold state. Of course, Iran’s ballistic missile force—the largest in the region—would not be limited in any way. These were explicit concessions acknowledged by the White House, but explained away in the most convoluted fashion.

No longer would Iran be compelled to abandon its enrichment program. It would only be constrained so as to extend the breakout time for the mullahs to build the bomb that they could then deliver by ballistic missile. And even these constraints would be removed after the agreement expires.

How the Iranian Nuclear Agreement Will Change History

 

Iran just made a deal to moderate its nuclear activity for sanctions relief. This is a decisive moment, setting the course in the time ahead for the Middle East and beyond.

Yesterday it was announced that the P5+1 nations reached a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program. If enacted, the deal will lift economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for concessions in its pursuit of nuclear technology.

Many observers are describing this deal as historic. That is absolutely right—but most people fail to understand why. A full appreciation for its significance requires viewing events from the unique perspective of how it fulfills biblical prophecy.

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This deal sets the course for what happens in the Middle East for years to come. We are certain to look back on it as a decisive moment in world events.

The most important effect is that it cements Iran’s position as king of the Middle East. This is a prophetically significant role that the Trumpet has believed for over two decades that Iran would fulfill. Probably nothing has highlighted the truth of this analysis more than what just happened. You can read the proof behind this conclusion in our booklet The King of the South.

Plan B For Iran

 

If the nuclear negotiations go bad, the U.S. has a backup: Obama can drop the MOP, the world’s largest non-nuclear bomb.

President Barack Obama’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran may yet fail. On Tuesday, exactly one week before a June 30 deadline for an agreement, Iran’s Supreme Leader delivered his latest in a series of defiant statements, setting conditions for a deal—including immediate relief from sanctions, before Iran has taken steps to limit its nuclear program—that Obama will never accept. Secretary of State John Kerry warned last week that the U.S. is prepared to walk away from the talks. And even if a deal is reached, the story is not over. The Iranians may break or cheat on an agreement, and try build a nuclear weapon anyway.

That’s why, at least three times in the past year, a B-2 stealth bomber has taken off from an Air Force base in Missouri and headed west to the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. For these missions, the $2 billion plane was outfitted with one of the world’s largest bombs. It is a cylinder of special high-performance steel, 20 feet long and weighing 15 tons. When dropped from an altitude likely above 20,000 feet, the bomb would have approached supersonic speed before striking a mock target in the desert, smashing through rock and burrowing deep into the ground before its 6,000 pounds of high explosives detonated with devastating force.

Iran “Deal”: West’s Surrender Triggering War

Western leaders wanted something akin to an agreement. They got something akin to an agreement.Iran’s leaders seem to have spotted pretty soon that Western leaders would willingly concede everything — and possibly more — to get any “agreement”; so that is what Western leaders got.

Iran Triumphant: Nuclear Deal Capitulates To Nearly All Iranian Demands

Obama has given the Iranians a license to attempt to wipe Israel off the map. There are no such things as mistakes with deals like these. It’s by design. He wants Israel just as dead as the Iranians do.

 

A beaming Iranian foreign minister emerged from the meeting rooms in Switzerland to announce that all of the theocracy’s major demands had been met. According to the new provisions released on the nuclear deal, Iran will get to both keep active its centrifuges and receive sanctions relief.

The State Department has released a “fact sheet” highlighting the various points of the deal. Sanctions against will be lifted immediately, and probably forever. Iran gets to keep a huge number of its nuclear centrifuges spinning, including a thousand of them at the previously hidden and illegal fortified bunker of Fordo, which is supposed to become a “peaceful” nuclear, physics, technology, and research center. There are sunset provisions on everything Iran has tentatively agreed to, although in his Rose Garden press conference announcing the deal, Obama claimed they would somehow be “permanently” blocked from various forms of weapons development.

Iran to Announce Number of Nuclear Centrifuges After March

 

LAUSANNE (Sputnik)– The exact number of centrifuges for Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program will be specified after the March deadline, a source in the Iranian delegation told Sputnik on Monday.

“It is not final yet,” the source said in regard to the number of centrifuges that Iran would be able to operate under the deal.

Does Iran Have Secret Nukes in North Korea?

Washington’s nuclear deal with Tehran depends on aggressive inspections inside Iran. But the mullahs may well have a secret program outside their borders.

In October 2012, Iran began stationing personnel at a military base in North Korea, in a mountainous area close to the Chinese border. The Iranians, from the Ministry of Defense and associated firms, reportedly are working on both missiles and nuclear weapons. Ahmed Vahidi, Tehran’s minister of defense at the time, denied sending people to the North, but the unconfirmed dispatches make sense in light of the two states announcing a technical cooperation pact the preceding month.

Phased US-Iran nuclear deal taking shape

If you’ve ever wondered what side the Obama administration is on, it should be pretty clear by now.

They have helped Iran stall over and over again, denied Israel crucial weapons it needs to defend itself and hampered its ability to go on the offensive if it knows it has to strike first to fight for its very existence. By the time 2017 comes around and Barack Obama is out of office, new rules of engagement added to the laws since during his tenure will have been set in stone for America’s military and it will not be able to engage.

Iran gets a free pass and the world over is endangered.

 

GENEVA (AP) — The United States and Iran are working on a two-phase deal that clamps down on Tehran’s nuclear program for at least a decade before providing it leeway over the remainder of the agreement to slowly ramp up activities that could be used to make weapons.

Officials from some of the six-power talks with Iran said details still needed to be agreed on, with U.S. and Iranian negotiators meeting Monday for the third straight day ahead of an end-of-March deadline for a framework agreement. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry joined the negotiations after arriving Sunday.

Iran: ‘Americans Have Very Clearly Surrendered’

Rouhani: ‘Today we have a victory’ 

VIENNA—Top Iranian leaders have been celebrating a recently inked extension in nuclear negotiations with the West, with leading military figures and politicians saying that the deal is a sign that the “Americans have very clearly surrendered to Iran’s might,” according to regional reports.

As negotiations in Vienna break up so that leaders from all sides can return to their countries for further deliberations, the Iranians have already begun mocking the West and insisting that the country’s nuclear rights will soon be recognized.

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The “Americans have very clearly surrendered to Iran’s might, and this is obvious in their behavior in the region and in the negotiations, and the enemies’ reservations vis-a-vis Iran are completely felt,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Iranian Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was quoted as saying late Monday following the announcement of an extension in talks.

‘Dragonfly’ virus strikes U.S. power plants

WASHINGTON – U.S. and European energy companies have become the target of a “Dragonfly” virus out of Eastern Europe that goes after energy grids, major electricity generation firms, petroleum pipelines operators and energy industrial equipment providers.

Unearthed by the cyber security firm Symantec, Dragonfly has been in operation since at least 2011. Its malware software allows its operators to not only monitor in real time, but also disrupt and even sabotage wind turbines, gas pipelines and power plants – all with the click of a computer mouse.

The attacks have disrupted industrial control system equipment providers by installing the malware during downloaded updates for computers running the ICS equipment.

Nuclear talks open with Iran and three unattainable US pledges to Israel re Fordo, Arak, enrichment

The second round of talks between the six powers and Iran – this time for a final, comprehensive resolution of the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program – opened in Geneva Tuesday, Feb. 18. But first, the Obama administration gave the Israeli government three pledges, debkafile’s Washington and Jerusalem sources reveal. It must be said, however, that none of those pledges is realistic.

One was a commitment to insist on the absolute shutdown of Iran’s underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordo. The second was the conversion of the reactor under construction at Arak from a heavy to a light water plant, in order to preclude the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons; and the third, to place a cap on the low-grade 5-percent enrichment of uranium.