The United States still believes that Iran is not on the verge of having a nuclear weapon and that Tehran has not made a decision to pursue one, U.S. officials said on Thursday. Their comments came after Israeli media reports claimed U.S. President Barack Obama had received a new National Intelligence Estimate saying Iran had made significant and surprising progress toward military nuclear capability. Later, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak suggested that the new U.S. report, which he acknowledged might be something other than a National Intelligence Estimate, “transforms the Iranian situation into an even more urgent one.” But a White House National Security Council spokesman disputed the Israeli reports, saying the U.S. intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear activities had not changed since intelligence officials delivered testimony to Congress on the issue earlier this year. “We believe that there is time and space to continue to pursue a diplomatic path, backed by growing international pressure on the Iranian government,” the spokesman said. “We continue to assess that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon.”
Category: UN
Senior Council on Foreign Relations fellow Ed Husain has hailed the presence of Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria, praising their fighting prowess in aid of FSA rebels while also lauding the increasing number of successful bombings…
PM was only in office since June 2012 – had been planning “defection” for at least as long based on battlefield before “Damascus Volcano” fizzled. Hailed by the Western press and its impressionable readers worldwide…
Western and Gulf regime support for rebel fighters isn’t bringing freedom to Syrians but escalating sectarian conflict and war The destruction of Syria is now in full flow. What began as a popular uprising 17…
An Indian paper carried special write-ups on the occasion of the 59th anniversary of the victory of the Korean people in the great Fatherland Liberation War. The New Delhi Times on July 24 devoted one…
The CIA-controlled Free Syrian Army (FSA) are claiming they have captured 48 Iranian spies after the FSA received US intelligence that Iran had planted people in Syria on reconnaissance missions. Abdel Nasser al-Shumair, Commander of the al-Baraa…
On Sunday 5 August a number of unidentified militants carried out an attack in the Egyptian Sinai in which several Egyptian soldiers were killed, and Israel’s border was penetrated. After Iftar as the Egyptian Muslims…
August 2012 began violently in the Sinai Peninsula. Glowing leftovers from the violence that took place last February erupted into full flames, causing unprecedented attacks from Israel and Egypt. On August 5, Global Jihad militants…
Corporate Lobbyists Threaten Democracy Over a month has passed since the United Nations summit on sustainable development concluded in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but the world still appears to be unaware of one of the…
The bumper sticker on the beat-up pickup truck read: “Friends don’t let friends vote Democrat.” The driver was obviously not affluent. Yet, despite all the news about mega-trillion dollar bankster bailouts, mega-million dollar bonuses for financial crooks, and unimaginable compensation packages for corporate CEOs who have moved middle class jobs out of America, something made the down-and-out pickup truck driver associate with the political party of the super-rich. As I wondered at this strange alliance of the dirt poor with the mega-rich, I remembered that in 2004 Thomas Frank wondered about how the Republicans had managed to convince the poor to vote against their best interests. Frank’s answer, or part of his answer, is that the Republicans use “social issues,” such as gay marriage and Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple to work up indignation over the threat to moral values posed by liberal Democrats.