Israel - Iran Tension

[Tams 20]

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[Obsidian 10]

Plans to strike Iran "ready", says U.S. Israel envoy

 

U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms.

 

Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes.

 

"It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure than to use military force," Ambassador Dan Shapiro said in remarks about Iran aired by Israel's Army Radio on Thursday.

 

"But that doesn't mean that option is not fully available - not just available, but it's ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it's ready," said Shapiro, who the radio station said had spoken on Tuesday.

 

The United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany have been using sanctions and negotiations to try to persuade Iran to curb its uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for reactors, medical isotopes, and, at higher levels of purification, fissile material for warheads.

 

New talks opened in Istanbul last month and resume on May 23 in Baghdad.

 

Israel, which is widely assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, feels threatened by the prospect of its arch-foe Iran going nuclear and has hinted it could launch preemptive war.

 

But many analysts believe the United States alone has the military clout to do lasting damage to Iran's nuclear program.

 

In January, Shapiro told an Israeli newspaper the United States was "guaranteeing that the military option is ready and available to the president at the moment he decides to use it".

 

U.S. lawmakers are considering additional legislation that would increase pressure on Iran, with further measures to punish foreign companies for dealing with Iran in any capacity.

[Obsidian 10]

Tehran plans to build two additional nuclear power plants in the coming years despite suspicion by Western powers. The Iranian president has told parliament that the country is surrounded by "evils."

 

The Iranian government announced on Sunday that it plans to build two additional nuclear power plants in the coming years, days after negotiations with world powers in Baghdad failed to produce compromise on uranium enrichment in the Islamic Republic.

 

"Iran will build a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant in Bushehr next year," Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told state television.

 

The Mehr and INSA news agencies both reported that Tehran was also planning a second new plant in the coming years. Iran currently has one operational nuclear power plant, the only one in the Middle East, which is located in Bushehr on the coast of the Persian Gulf.

 

German engineers began construction on that plant in the 1975 before the Islamic Revolution brought the Ayatollah regime to power four years later. Russia subsequently finished the plant, which as inaugurated in 2010, and continues to help maintain and provide fuel for the facility.

 

Abbasi Davani was quoted by INSA as saying that the plans for a new 360-megawatt plant at Darkhovin, near Bushehr, "have been finished and we are reviewing it."

 

The announcement was made three days after negotiations in Baghdad between Iran and six world powers - China, France, Germany, Russia the US and the UK - failed to produce results. They agreed to meet again in Moscow on June 18-19.

 

"Evils from all directions"

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed parliament for the first time since two rounds of national elections in March and May, in which hardliners loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini trounced Ahmadinejad 's loyalists.

 

The president lost support partially due to the perception that he was trying to challenge the Khameini's power. Under the Islamic Republic's constitution, the Supreme Leader has the final say on all national issues.

 

"Today, evils have been mobilized from all directions to put the Iranian nation under pressure. Removing and resisting the pressures, and cooperation, are the main priority today," Ahmadinejad told lawmakers without elaborating. State TV broadcast the speech live.

 

Western nations accuse Iran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon and have imposed crushing sanctions against the Islamic Republic's oil exports and banking sector. The United States and Israel have threatened to use military force if Iran doesn't open its program to inspectors and to stop high-level uranium enrichment.

 

Tehran claims that its atomic program is peaceful and wants the sanctions to be loosened in exchange for possible concessions.

[Obsidian 10]

a barking politician does not bite?

Possible war with Iran could be month-long affair: Israel minister | Reuters