Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi visited Riyadh Monday, Dec. 12 with a large delegation and a proposition for Crown Prince Nayef: For an anti-US and anti-Zionist pact on regional issues, Tehran would act to bring the Syrian opposition into government and open its nuclear program to Saudi participation. Moslehi boasted that after seizing top US secret drone technology by a successful cyber attack, Iran was unquestionably the top regional power. The Saudis moved fast to take the ayatollahs down a peg or two.

Bigheaded from capturing the US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth  drone, Tehran Monday, Dec. 12 announced plans soon for a navy drill to practice closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil transit channel in the world. Iranian lawmaker Parviz Sorouri said, "Iran will make the world unsafe if the world attacks Iran." The drill will challenge US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's recent warning that Iranian disruptions of Persian Gulf free traffic would be a red line for the US.

 

Iran is driving a hard bargain for granting Russian and Chinese teams access to the US stealth drone RQ-170 it captured undamaged last week. debkafile reports: The price, they were told, includes advanced nuclear and missile technology, especially systems using solid fuel, the last word on centrifuges for enriching uranium and the S-300PMU-1 air defense system, which Moscow has consistently refused to sell Tehran. Israel's prime minister sent foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman to Moscow to try and stop the deal.

Iran exhibited the top-secret US stealth drone RQ-170 Sentinel captured on Sunday, Dec. 4. Its almost perfect condition confirmed Tehran's claim that the UAV was downed by a cyber attack, meaning it was brought in undamaged by an electronic warfare ambush. This is a major debacle for the stealth technology the US uses in its warplanes and the drone technology developed by the US and Israel.  It obliges both to revise their strike plans against Iran's nuclear program.

Complaints about the gaps in the Obama administration's knowledge of Israel's intentions to attack Iran's nuclear facilities were heard in Washington Wednesday, Dec. 7. In its latest issue out Friday, DEBKA-Net-Weekly revealed exclusively what the US administration asked of Israel in this regard, its response and their plans for a nuclear-armed Iran. Our experts examined how the arrival of the US stealth drone RQ-170 in Iranian hands affect a potential attack.
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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has placed the Revolutionary Guards on a war footing fearing an attack by the West and Israel on Iran's nuclear sites, the London Telegraph reports Dec. 6. They have redistributed the Shahab missiles to secret sites ready to launch retaliatory strikes; Guards units are scattered to preset defense lines and air force "rapid reaction units" are ready to respond to enemy air attack. By capturing the top-secret US RQ-170 spy drone, Iran gains a military edge before any overt strike begins.

Tehran latched onto US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's warning Friday, Dec. 2 that an Israeli strike at Iran's nuclear facilities would cause unpredictable results. Sunday, Iran issued two threats: to hit back beyond its borders for a US drone which its military claimed to have shot down in the east, and to force oil prices to soar to $250 a barrel if  an  embargo is imposed on its oil exports – a hint at  a Strait of Hormuz blockade.

US President Barack Obama declared in ringing tones Wednesday, Nov. 30, "We don't compromise when it comes to Israel's security." Three days later, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a lecture to the Brookings Institute outlined America's demands of Israel: To abstain from attacking Iran and rely on the US; to negotiate with the Palestinians; to reach out to Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and to pursue only goals shared with the US – demands almost synonymous with the Israeli opposition's platform.

Amid international and Israeli controversy over whether or not to attack Iran's nuclear program, the rulers of the Islamic Republic have just "upgraded" their strategic objective of wiping Israel off the map and extended it for the first time to the more ambitious one of annihilating the Jews worldwide. A virulently anti-Semitic book and film were released for nationwide distribution on orders from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. They draw heavily on the infamous Elders of Zion fiction of a Jewish world conspiracy.

After spotting an attempted plot on the life of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran has launched a mega manhunt to ferret out the army of double agents and inside traitors suspected to have infested the upper reaches of its government, Revolutionary Guards and armed forces.

The West and Israel have no option but to admit the failure of a decade of sanctions, military threats, diplomatic penalties, cyber war and covert operations to abort Iran's drive for a nuclear bomb. Tehran has never wavered from its goal, citing the "Persian Carpet Doctrine" as its secret ...

Major US-Israel differences surfaced suddenly Thursday, Dec. 1, over the timing and circumstances of an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, when Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, said: "I don't know whether Israel would alert the United States ahead of time if it decided to take military action against Iran." Three hours later, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak maintained US policy would enable Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon without the possibility of attacking it. Meanwhile, facilities are being hidden underground.

Britain's seemingly tough steps Wednesday, Nov. 30 - expeling Iranian diplomats from London and closing the UK embassy in Tehran - stopped well short of punishment for their government's action in loosing a student mob against the embassy, debkafile notes. To really hurt Tehran, UK Prime Minister David Cameron would have shut down Iran's English-language Press TV and World Office of Islamic Guidance, Iran's most influential anti-West propaganda machines in the English language. The German, French, Dutch ambassadors are recalled.

First, Hizballah reported the unmasking of a CIA network in Lebanon. Then, Wednesday, Nov. 23, an Iranian lawmaker Parviz Sorouri, a member of the Iranian parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, claimed the capture of 12 CIA spies targeting Iran's military and its nuclear program with the Mossad and regional agencies. Beirut and Tehran had clearly joined forces, debkafile report, to prove they were on top of their security and had smashed dangerous US intelligence networks operating inside their armed forces.

Supreme Ruler Ayatollah Khamenei has decided that Iran can choke off military threats and economic sanctions simply by going public on its manufacture of a nuclear bomb and declaring itself a nuclear power. His national security council thinks this is a bad idea – especially when weapon production still ...

It is within the next six months or never. Israel's defense minister has finally confirmed its time frame for an attacking Iran's nuclear sites, having given up on sanctions present or future and strong UN nuclear agency counter-measures having any effect.

Saudi rulers have concluded that to survive in the Middle East, they need an independent nuclear weapon capability. They have launched a nuclear weapons and missile program as a counterweight to the Iranian capability which they do not expect anyone else to curtail.

After deploying three warships in Syrian waters, Moscow continues to beat war drums against the United States and Israel, followed closely by Tehran. Wednesday, Nov. 23, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced he had ordered "the armed forces to develop measures to ensure we can destroy the command and control systems" of the planned US missile-defense system in Europe. debkafile: Those systems also control Israel's missile defenses against Iranian, Syria and Hizballah missiles and the X-Band radar station in the Israeli Negev.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his inner council are very near to deciding on an unanswerable rejoinder to the rising level of international pressure on its nuclear program, DEBKA-Net-Weekly disclosed in its latest issue out last Friday.  It is designed to checkmate the West's drive to curb Iran's nuclear aspirations in the coming days before a military option develops and sanctions cut down to the bone.
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The US, Canada and Russia have launched gunboat diplomacy against Syria and Iran. Washington is underscoring its military option against Iran's nuclear program, while Russia is demonstrating its resolve to prevent NATO from attacking Syria. Monday, Nov. 21, Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov accused Western nations of "political provocation" against Damascus. Turkish Prime Minster Tayyip Erdogan warned Assad he could go only so far with tanks and guns. "One day you will go." The question is when will naval diplomacy turn into war action.