Biden & Iran

[DeciduousHorns]

A month after 9/11, the darkest day in America's history, Senator Joe Biden met with his committee staff to see what they could do. Biden hit upon this idea:

"Seem to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran."

. . . . This is the man who currently occupies the vice presidency.

 

[waltky]

Granny say make `em give up dey's nuclear bombs, den talk to `em...

Biden: US would hold direct talks if Iran serious
Feb 2,`13 -- The United States is prepared to hold direct talks with Iran in the standoff over its nuclear ambitions, Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday - but he insisted that Tehran must show it is serious and Washington won't engage in such talks merely "for the exercise."

During a trip to an international security conference in Germany, Biden also addressed Syria's civil war. He met with top Syrian opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib and with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia, a longtime ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Separately, al-Khatib met with Lavrov for the first time, offering a glimmer of hope for stalled diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, though the Russian minister later sounded skeptical. Washington has indicated in the past that it's prepared to talk directly with Iran, and talks involving all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany have made little headway while several rounds of international sanctions have cut into Iran's oil sales and financial transactions.

Last month Iran, in a defiant move ahead of new talks expected soon with the six powers, announced plans to vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment. That can be used to make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Biden told an international security conference that "there is still time, there is still space for diplomacy backed by pressure to succeed." He did not specify any timeframe. He insisted that "the ball is in the government of Iran's court" to show that it's negotiating in good faith. Asked when Washington might hold direct talks with Tehran, Biden replied: "When the Iranian leadership, the supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), is serious."

The U.S. has long made clear that it is prepared to meet directly with the Iranian leadership, he added - "that offer stands but it must be real and tangible and there has to be an agenda that they're prepared to speak to." "We are not just prepared to do it for the exercise," Biden told the Munich Security Conference. Russia's Lavrov, whose country is a key player in the six-nation talks with Iran, said it was important to offer Iran clear incentives to resolve the nuclear standoff. "We have to convince Iran that it is not about the regime change," he said. Iran insists it does not want nuclear arms and argues it has a right to enrich uranium for a civilian nuclear power program, but suspicion persists that the real aim is nuclear weapons. Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, is to address the conference Sunday.

While Russia and the U.S. have worked together on Iran, their differences over Syria were on display again at the conference in Munich, an annual gathering of top security officials. In his speech, Biden stressed the conviction of the U.S. and many others that "President Assad - a tyrant hell-bent on clinging to power - is no longer fit to lead the Syrian people and he must go." He said that "the opposition continues to grow stronger." He later held separate meetings with Lavrov, international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and Syria's top opposition leader, Moaz al-Khatib. On the sidelines of the conference, Lavrov in turn met for the first time with al-Khatib - who in December rejected a previous Russian invitation for talks, Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported.

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Qaher F313: Iran unveils home-made 'stealth' fighter
2 February 2013 - Iran has unveiled a new home-made combat aircraft, which officials say can evade radar.

The single-seat Qaher F313 (Dominant F313) is the latest design produced by Iran's military since it launched the Azarakhsh (Lightning), in 2007. President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad said it had "almost all the positive features" of the world's most sophisticated jets. He said the "development of the Iranian nation's military power is... for deterrence and defensive purposes". In an unveiling ceremony inside a Tehran hangar broadcast on State TV on Saturday, Mr Ahmadinejad said he ranked the aircraft as "among the most advanced fighter jets in the world".

Pictures of the jet were released by state television, showing a steely grey jet that Iran's Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said was built with "advanced materials" and had a very low radar signature. The ceremony was timed to coincide with the 34th anniversary of the 1979 revolution, which replaced the US-backed shah with an Islamic regime. Iran this week claimed to have successfully sent a monkey into space in a Pishgam rocket, which reached an altitude of some 120km (75 miles) for a sub-orbital flight.

Western nations responded by expressing concern that Iran's space programme was being used to develop long-range missiles that could potentially be used to carry nuclear warheads. Iran denies it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and insists its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.

BBC News - Qaher F313: Iran unveils home-made 'stealth' fighter

 

[waltky]

More Iranian delay and stall tactics...

EU proposes Iran nuclear talks, hopes for Iranian confirmation
3 Feb.`13 - World powers have proposed holding a new round of talks with Iran over Tehran's nuclear work in the week of February 25 in Kazakhstan, a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Sunday.

However, Ashton's team, which coordinates diplomatic contacts with Iran on its nuclear program on behalf of the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain, is still hoping for confirmation of the date and venue from Iran's negotiating team, the spokesman said.

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Iran hedges on nuclear talks with six powers or U.S.
3 Feb. `13 - Iran said on Sunday it was open to a U.S. offer of direct talks on its nuclear program and that six world powers had suggested a new round of nuclear negotiations this month, but without committing itself to either proposal.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve a dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but the West suspects is intended to give Iran the capability to build a nuclear bomb, have been all but deadlocked for years, while Iran has continued to announce advances in the program. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said a suggestion on Saturday by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Washington was ready for direct talks with Iran if Tehran was serious about negotiations was a "step forward". "We take these statements with positive consideration. I think this is a step forward but ... each time we have come and negotiated it was the other side unfortunately who did not heed ... its commitment," Salehi said at the Munich Security Conference where Biden made his overture a day earlier.

He also complained to Iran's English-language Press TV of "other contradictory signals", pointing to the rhetoric of "keeping all options on the table" used by U.S. officials to indicate they are willing to use force to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. "This does not go along with this gesture (of talks) so we will have to wait a little bit longer and see if they are really faithful this time," Salehi said. Iran is under a tightening web of sanctions. Israel has also hinted it may strike if diplomacy and international sanctions fail to curb Iran's nuclear drive. In Washington, Army General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the United States has the capability to stop any Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons, but Iranian "intentions have to be influenced through other means."

Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his comments on NBC's program "Meet the Press," speaking alongside outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Panetta said current U.S. intelligence indicated that Iranian leaders have not made a decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon. "But every indication is they want to continue to increase their nuclear capability," he said. "And that's a concern. And that's what we're asking them to stop doing." The new U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, has said he will give diplomacy every chance of solving the Iran standoff.

THE BEST CHANCE

 

[waltky]

Granny says it's better to err on the side o' caution an' take `em out before dey get the bomb...

Obama: Iran more than one year from getting nuclear weapon
3/15/13 - President Obama said the United States believes Iran is more than a year away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

"Right now, we think that it would take over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon," Obama told Israeli Channel 2 TV ahead of his trip to the country next week. "But obviously, we don't want to cut it too close. What we are going to do is to continue to engage internationally with Iran." The president went on to reiterate that Iranian possession of a nuclear weapon was a "red line" for the United States, but that he continued to hope that diplomacy would avert nuclear armament. "There is a window — not an infinite period time, but a window of time — where we can resolve this diplomatically," Obama said.

Obama added that he was hopeful that economic sanctions against the country were having their intended effect, pressuring the Iranian regime to abandon its nuclear ambitions. "They are not yet at the point, I think, where they've made a fundamental decision to get right with the international community," the president said. "But I do think they are recognizing that there is a severe cost for them to continue down the path they are on and that there's another door open."

The president was also asked about reports of tension with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader was a decades-old friend of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. During the presidential campaign, Republicans suggested that Obama had struggled to develop a partnership with the prime minister. But Obama said such concerns were overblown, calling the critique political in nature. "There are conservative views both here in the United States and in Israel that may not jibe with mine, particularly when there is an election season coming up," he said.

Obama was also asked about the possible release of Jonathan Pollard, and American citizen arrested in 1985 on espionage charges. Pollard admitted to giving American military secrets to Israel, and is now serving a life sentence. Israel has acknowledged that Pollard is a spy, and the country has asked for his release, granting him citizenship and offering to take him in. "I have no plans of releasing Jonathan Pollard immediately," Obama said.

Read more: Obama: Iran more than one year from getting nuclear weapon - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

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US expects year for Iran nuclear bomb
Sat, Mar 16, 2013 - COUNTDOWN TO ZERO: Comments by the US president on Iran set him at odds with the Israelis, who favor a more timely response to what they see as a very real threat

US President Barack Obama told an Israeli television station on Thursday that his administration believed it would take Iran “over a year or so” to develop a nuclear weapon, and he vowed that the US would do whatever was necessary to prevent that from happening. Less than a week before his first visit as president to Israel, Obama pledged to continue diplomatic efforts, but he promised that the US would keep all options on the table to ensure that Iran did not become a nuclear threat to its neighbors. “Right now, we think it would take over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon, but obviously we don’t want to cut it too close,” Obama told the Israeli station, Channel 2 TV.

He said his message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “will be the same as before: ‘If we can resolve it diplomatically that is a more lasting solution.’” “But if not, I continue to keep all options on the table,” he added. Obama’s estimated timeline contrasts with Netanyahu’s stated belief that Israel and its Western allies are likely to have to intervene by the spring or summer, when, he says, Iran’s scientists will have enriched enough uranium to become a nuclear threat. Iran denies that its nuclear program has any military aim. The question of how close Iran is to being able to use a nuclear weapon has generated friction between the two leaders and will be at the center of their security discussions.

Obama is scheduled to spend two days in Israel before visiting the West Bank and Jordan. Obama has rarely been so specific about how long US intelligence agencies estimate it will take Iran to build a bomb. In defining the problem as he did — when Iran could get a weapon, rather than when it could have the capability to build one — he subtly indicated that he and Netanyahu still saw the problem in very different terms. The Israeli position has long been that Iran must be denied the capability to piece a weapon together. Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Ehud Barak, argue that if Iran is just a few screwdriver turns away from being able to construct a weapon, it will have the same power in the region as if it actually had one.

When Netanyahu held up a picture of a cartoon-like bomb at the UN last year, with a red line drawn near the top, he was creating his boundary: Iran could not possess enough nuclear fuel to produce a single weapon. Israeli officials say that, in real numbers, that means it cannot be allowed to hold 240kg or so of uranium enriched to a medium level of purity. From there, they have argued, it would take Iran only a few months to build a bomb. Obama, in the interview, offered a different estimate: How long it would take Iran to build a full weapon. That would mean enriching enough uranium; fashioning it into a weapon, surrounded by detonators; and being able to be delivered by airplane, cargo ship or missile.

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[zonly1]

A month after 9/11, the darkest day in America's history, Senator Joe Biden met with his committee staff to see what they could do. Biden hit upon this idea:

"Seem to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran."

. . . . This is the man who currently occupies the vice presidency.

Joey, "I love life Martha".

Women and rape, joey suggest firing off both rounds, w/o checking city ordnance, of your shotgun. Great analogy joey, now the female in her house can't defend herself b/c she is seconds count Joey when police are minutes away, JOEY.

Joey seems to think he's in the room but when you have a history of incoherent thought/statements...maybe he's on prescribed meds, psychotropic drugs? Like Chucky Hagel. That is sound punch drunk responces I haven't heard in some time.