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Iran Launches Destroyer In The Caspian Sea

Photo Credit: etnobofin

Iran on Sunday launched its domestically built destroyer in the Caspian Sea, the nation’s first heavy military presence in the oil-rich sea, state TV reported.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the guided-missile destroyer Jamaran-2 in the port city of Anzali, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of Tehran.

After final tests, the report said, Jamaran-2 will join Iran’s naval fleet in the sea in coming months.

The 1,400-ton destroyer, which has a helicopter landing pad, is 94 meters (yards) long and can cruise at 30 knots. It is equipped to surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles as well as anti-aircraft batteries and sophisticated radar and communications terminals, the report said.

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President Obama’s Naive Foreign Policy Unravels As A “Tiny Country” Threatens Us With Nukes

Photo Credit: IrishCentral

Four years ago a newly minted President Obama assured us we had very little to fear in his new world of foreign policy. There was no longer a Soviet Union that could threaten our very existence and besides, as a Nobel Peace Prize winner he had the moral authority to reset our foreign policy….to make America loved, rather than feared. Unlike it had been during the Bush administration.

He proclaimed that Iran, Cuba and North Korea were tiny countries and wouldn’t be able to resist his charm offensive coupled with a beer summit.

In order to show the utmost self confidence in his ability to change the world, President Obama acquiesced to the Russians and didn’t install planned anti missile defenses in Eastern Europe aimed at incoming missiles from Iran. He also cancelled/delayed planned deployment of anti missile shields on our own soil leaving us wide open and unprotected

But after over 4 years of the Obama foreign policy/charm offensive, the administration is feverishly trying to deploy the very missile shields it cancelled 4 years ago. These shields were designed to thwart incoming nuke missiles from the tiny country of North Korea. 14 anti missile batteries are being rushed into place in Alaska, along with other measures previously rejected by Obama in other parts of the world.

Four years of dithering and charm offensive have let Iran and North Korea go forward virtually unchecked in their nuclear ambitions. Now those chickens are starting to come home to roost.

Last week North Korea cancelled the armistice it had with South Korea and declared their right to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on the US in retaliation for new sanctions imposed on them.

North Korea has already thumbed its nose at Obama by conducting underground nuclear explosions and successfully launched a missile capable of striking the US….All of this in the face of “stern” threats from the paper tiger Obama administration.

Ominously, in the other tiny country of Iran, the acquisition of much faster centrifuges will speed up the time it takes to get them enough enriched uranium for nuclear weapons…again all of this in the face of “stern” threats and trade sanctions from the Obama administration.

Buried in the press a few months back was the report that Iran had suffered an accident at one of their nuclear sites. The accident killed several of their scientists, but reportedly killed a few North Korean scientists as well.

President Obama: Today even tiny nuclear armed countries can have the ability to ruin our day, not by just lobbing nuclear missiles at us, but by spreading those weapons to terrorists and other rogue, tiny countries around the world. It’s time you take the rose colored glasses off. In this world it is far better and safer to be feared and respected, rather than trying to be liked.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Iran Was Holding Bin Laden Son-In-Law Abu Ghaith, US Officials Say

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesU.S. officials say Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, captured last month in Turkey and now in New York, has spent most of the last decade in Iran, in some sort of confinement.

Back in late 2001, as U.S. troops and Afghan tribal forces were dismantling the Taliban control of Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden made a decision.

He sent his operators, people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abu Zubaydah to the cities of Pakistan where they were to hide out and plan further attacks against the US. All of the key players were captured or killed, with the exception of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s No. 2 who remains at large, having survived at least three Predator attacks.

At the same time, bin Laden sent his top managers, al-Qaida’s Management Council, to Iran, arming them with money to bribe their way across the border, according to multiple US and Iranian officials. Bin Laden apparently hoped that the Iranians would see the group not as Sunni terrorists but as “an enemy of my enemy,” as one senior U.S. official put it.

Among those who made their way into Iran were Saif al-Adel, al-Qaida’s military director; bin Laden’s son Saad; and Abu Ghaith, the group’s communications director … and also bin Laden’s son-in-law. At one point not long after its arrival, this group, numbering in the hundreds with family members and bodyguards, was captured by Iranian authorities. Although senior U.S. officials have told NBC News they did not know the conditions of their confinement — “it was the blackest of black boxes,” one former senior U.S. official told NBC News — Iranian officials said the group was “in jail.”

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Iran Orders Terrorists: Prepare For War

Photo Credit: WNDIran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered all of the Islamic regime’s armed forces to prepare for war, WND learned Tuesday.

According to a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit, the regime believes Israel is on the verge of an attack, which could then draw America into the conflict.

Hundreds of ballistic missiles are ready to be launched against Israel and U.S. military bases in the region, the source said, and all terror groups that have long been positioned in Europe and America are ready to act should war break out.

While the regime has called last week’s negotiations held in Kazakhstan “a turning point” between Iran and the 5-plus-1 countries – the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany – it is stalling for time to complete its nuclear weapons development, at which point it believes Israel and the West will have no choice but to accept a nuclear-armed Iran, the source said. However, regime officials do not believe Israel will wait it out and hence the preparations for war, he added.

WND reported exclusively on Feb. 28 about a warning by the regime’s armed forces deputy chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, that al-Qaida operatives will soon attack America and Europe, even as a second terror team sent by the Islamic regime is about to enter the U.S.

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‘Hagel Has Promoted Agenda Of The Enemy’

Photo Credit: WNDA former Nobel Peace Prize nominee warns that Senate confirmation of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense would send a message to Iran of weakened U.S. resolve, making it less likely America’s military might would in any way deter Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“Going back to 2001, Hagel has been opposed to U.S. sanctions on Iran and in favor of recognizing the Islamic Republic in order to normalize trade relationships,” journalist and activist Ken Timmerman told WND. “Hagel has virtually made his position on Iran identical to the policies of the Iranian government, including a demand the U.S. enter direct negotiations with Iran ‘without preconditions’ and opposing the United States’ use of military force to block Iran’s nuclear weapons development program.”

Timmerman began in the Foundation for Democracy in Iran in 1995 as part of his ongoing support for freedom in the Islamic country and in 2006 was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Sweden’s former Deputy Prime Minister Per Ahlmark for playing a major role in exposing Iran’s plans to develop nuclear weapons.

“If Hagel is confirmed as secretary of defense,” Timmerman argued, “we will have someone in charge of the U.S. military who has promoted the agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran, an enemy of the United States since 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran to begin the Iranian revolution.”

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Israel: Iran Closer Than Ever To Nuclear Bomb

Photo Credit: France24Iran is “closer than ever” to the ability to build a nuclear bomb, Israel said on Thursday, as a new UN report said Tehran has begun installing next-generation equipment at one of its main nuclear plants.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s report said Iran started installing new and advanced centrifuges at Natanz, which would enable it to speed up the enrichment of uranium.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the report was “severe,” and “proves Iran is continuing to rapidly advance to the red line that the prime minister drew at his speech in the United Nations.”

“Iran is closer than ever today to obtaining enriched material for a nuclear bomb,” the statement read.

In a September address to the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu called for a “clear red line” to stop Iran getting a nuclear bomb.

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Found! Iran’s Secret Ballistic Missile Base

Photo Credit: DigitalGlobe WND has learned of the existence of a secret ballistic missile base in Iran’s Semnan Province to which the Islamic regime has moved missiles armed with microbial warheads.

The Badr base, a center for air defense which has about 50 underground missile silos housing Iran’s Shahab 3 ballistic missiles, serves as Iran’s second-largest missile-launching site, and is under the control of the Revolutionary Guards.

The base, in the deserts of Semnan far from any city, has many underground tunnels connecting to the silo launching pads, according to a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit.

The base’s command and control are connected to other bases in Noje, Hamdan, Shahid Doran in Shiraz and the country’s air traffic control centers in Tehran, Birjand and Bandar Abass. Last year, the Revolutionary Guards aired footage on Iranian TV showing commanders along with a reporter travel via private jet to the base to observe a test launch of a Shahab 3 from an underground silo.

At that time, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace division, claimed that by placing the ballistic missiles in underground silos, the country is preparing for asymmetrical warfare, which will allow the country to stand up to more powerful enemies. Asymmetric warfare is war between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly, or whose strategy or tactics differ significantly.

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Documents: Hagel Staffers Met With ‘Front Group’ For Iranian Regime

Photo Credit: APDocuments obtained by The Daily Caller show that staffers for then-Sen. Chuck Hagel met repeatedly with a controversial pro-Iran lobby group, and some met with the organization’s president.

Hagel is President Barack Obama’s choice to be the next secretary of defense. Arizona Sen. John McCain and other Republicans have conceded that a vote — and likely confirmation — will take place during the week of Feb. 25.

Iranian state-run media have referred to the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) since at least 2006 as “Iran’s lobby” in the U.S.

It portrays itself in the media as an independent group of Iranian expatriates. But Sam Nunberg, director of the Legal Project at the Middle East Forum project, describes the NIAC as an Iranian “front group.”

And documents released during the discovery phase of a defamation lawsuit NIAC filed against Seid Hassan Daioleslam, editor of the Iranian American Forum and one of the regime’s most public critics, include correspondence with Mohammed Javad Zaif, then Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations.

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Steps Deeper Into The Political Fray And Uncharted Territory

photo credit: david holt londonIran’s supreme leader is supposed to be many things in the eyes of his followers: Spiritual mentor, protector of the Islamic Revolution, a moral compass above the regular fray. Political referee is not among them.

Yet that is the unfamiliar role Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has adopted as the political mudslinging gets heavier ahead of elections in June to pick a successor for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Bad, wrong, inappropriate,” scolded Khamenei on Saturday in his most stinging rebuke of Ahmadinejad for his mounting attacks on rivals — including an ambush earlier this month in parliament when he played a barely audible videotape that purported to show corruption inside the family of the chamber’s speaker.

Khamenei then went on to chide the parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, for publicly humiliating Ahmadinejad in response to the tape. “When there is a common enemy and conspiracies are hatched from all sides, is there any way other than strengthening brotherhood and resisting the enemy?” Khamenei said in reference to widening Western sanctions and pressures over Iran’s nuclear program.

Hardball politics are nothing new in Iran, whose elected parliament and government can make even Washington’s bickering seem genteel. It also is unlikely to threaten the real power in Iran: The ruling clerics and their guardians led by the Revolutionary Guard.

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Iranians On Revolution Day Chant ‘Death To America’

Photo Credit: AFPHundreds of thousands of people marched on Sunday in Tehran and other cities chanting “Death to America” as Iran marked the 34th anniversary of the Islamic revolution that ousted the U.S.-backed shah.

In the capital, crowds waving Iranian flags and portraits of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini walked toward the landmark Azadi (Freedom) Square, in a government-sponsored rally which is now a cornerstone of the regime.

Marchers also chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” as they headed for the square, some waving posters of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to make an address.

Iran is holding similar rallies nationwide, especially in large provincial capitals such as Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz and Kerman.

At the Tehran rally, foreign media were being closely monitored and allowed to cover the event from officially designated areas only.

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