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Reporter: Fall 2007 could see an 'uptick' in US-Iran tensions Michael Roston
Published: Friday May 4, 2007

A top journalist tracking the dispute between Iran and the international community over its nuclear program has suggested in an interview published at the Harpers' website that an uptick in tensions between the US and Iran could emerge this fall.

"If by September the 'surge' is deemed to be ineffective, the Bush Administration may seek to blame Iran for its continuing difficulties," Laura Rozen, a top correspondent for the American Prospect and the Washington Monthly, told Harpers' Ken Silverstein. "So I would not be surprised later this fall to see an uptick in Iran-bashing from elements of the administration and associated constituencies trying to gin up confrontation."

Rozen was participating in an interview with Silverstein on the state of the Iranian dispute and US-Iran relations. She also noted that tensions were in check at the moment because currently "there's not a great desire at the State Department or the Pentagon for another war."

In the interview, Rozen also criticized the Bush administration for publicly announcing its intention of funding groups inside Iran that are critical of the current regime.

"Since the Bush Administration announced that it would fund opposition groups, the Iranian government has arrested intellectuals, writers, and activists who have participated in conferences abroad that were sponsored by private NGOs, and accused them of being involved in American-backed efforts to overthrow the regime," she argued. "The international consequences may not have been carefully thought out."

Rozen also accused advocates of funding Iranian opposition groups, such as the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle, of using such efforts to catalyze military conflict with Iran.

"One wonders if those advocating for heavy Washington involvement see that strategy as a means of deepening U.S. involvement to a point that military confrontation ultimately becomes inevitable," she explained.

 http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Report_Fall_will_see_uptick_in_0504.html

Missiles could stall Iran nuclear (Power) programme: Olmert in German mag
BERLIN, April 28 (AFP) Apr 28, 2007

A rain of missiles could degrade Iran's nuclear programme and set it back years, a German weekly quoted Israel's prime minister as saying, sparking a warning from Tehran that such a strike would be a dangerous "error".

(Keep in mind that the IAEA has stated that Iran is well within its rights under the NPT (unlike the US and Israel), and that there is no evidence whatsoever to support the claims being made by the same guys who said Saddam's arsenal of WMD posed a "dire threat" to the world.)

"It may not be possible to destroy all of the Iranian nuclear programme, but it is possible to damage to in such a way it would be set back several years," Ehud Olmert was quoted as saying in Focus magazine in an interview to be published on Monday.

"It's technically feasible. It would require 10 days and the launch of a thousand Tomahawk missiles," he said, according to excerpts made available on Saturday.

(For a man who swears that an attack isn't in the works, this is pretty detailed stuff ...)

But Olmert's office issued a denial that the prime minister had raised the prospect of cruise missile attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities.

(Even though we just heard it from his own mouth ... I guess this is kinda like Israel pretending Olmert didn't also admit that, yes, Israel does indeed possess nuclear weapons.)

"During an informal half-hour discussion with a stringer, the prime minister did not at any time make the statements which were published," said his spokeswoman, Miri Eisin.

"The prime minister has not changed his position: he believes international sanctions are for the moment the most effective means of preventing Iran from pursuing its military nuclear programme," she said in a statement.

She said the premier's office could decide to sue the journalist.

According to Focus, Olmert said "nobody could exclude" military action against Iran if the Islamic republic continued to defy UN resolutions calling for a halt to sensitive atomic work feared to be a step towards building a nuclear arsenal.

(Remember that these are US and Israeli plots, sent to the UN on a bed of threats, to legitimize what these Extremists see as an inevitability - like the war on Iraq.)

Iranian authorities immediately described Olmert's reported comments as empty "bravado," according to the state-run news agency Isna.

The head of its parliamentary foreign affairs commission, Alladin Borojerdy, said: "If the United States and Israel commit such a mistake, they know better than anybody what the consequences will be for themselves."

He added that the head of the UN nuclear watchdog "Mohamed ElBaradei has stated that Iran's nuclear science cannot be destroyed by missile strikes ... because the science is national."

Many of Iran's nuclear facilities are believed to be deep underground, in reinforced bunkers difficult to destroy with conventional weapons.

Israel has repeatedly said in recent weeks that it wants to see the crisis over Iran's programme resolved through diplomatic means.

But unsubstantiated reports have suggested that Israel and the United States have prepared plans for military strikes.

 http://www.spacewar.com/2006/070428155232.bpm29dky.html