The Obama administration has a plan for closing Hassan Nasrallah's options on the Hariri tribunal which could also be applied to Osama bin Laden and other elusive terrorists: Trial in absentia. The tribunal itself is dragging its feet and may not be ready to go before the spring.

Tehran has developed four systems for beating sanctions, including hawala, smuggling, recruiting ex-pats and big power help – except for the hard-hitting fuel penalties which bite deep. Certain that the next round of nuclear talks with the world powers will fail, Iran imposed austerity measures to build itself a ...

Tehran is promoting the creation of a Hamas government-in-exile. It will remain secret until the moment is at hand to topple the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and take its place. Hamas-Gaza is left out in the cold.

After studying Israel's military exercise near the Syrian-Lebanese border last week, Tehran transferred a team of Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Special Engineers from Syria to Lebanon for recommendations on how its lessons should be applied to Hizballah's war array, debkafile reports. Some 20-30 Iranian officer-engineers are examining Hizballah fortifications sector by sector. The Israeli exercise simulated a drive into Lebanon by IDF infantry and armored forces in the event of a large-scale Hizballah incursion into N. Israel.

Jund Allah, the Iranian rebel Sunni Baluchi organization, announced  Wednesday, Dec. 22 its plans to execute Amir Hossein Shirani, a senior Iranian nuclear scientist, whom the organization abducted on Oct. 8 at the entrance of the secret Iranian nuclear facility in Isfahan. His fate was sealed when Tehran refused to trade 200 jailed inmates for his release. Amir Shirani may become the first high-ranking Iranian nuclear expert to be put to death by a terrorist organization.

Hard-pressed by Syrian and Turkish rulers, Jordan's King Abdullah II has sharply reduced the kingdom's military and intelligence collaboration with Israel after 60 years. debkafile's intelligence sources disclose Jordan has whittled cooperation down to the narrow border strip cutting down the middle of the Jordan River, retaining it only because it is a barrier against the flooding of the kingdom with hundreds of thousands of West Bank Palestinians. Abdullah next plans a state visit to Iran.

The $20 billion dollars which Western economists estimate are freed up by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's deep cuts of state subsidies will help cushion the country's nuclear program against the slowdown caused by the international sanctions imposed this year by the UN, the US and European countries, debkafile's Iranian sources report. They will also make more cash available for the president's personal political plans. Security forces flood the streets to suppress popular protest.

If Jordan finally goes over to the Iranian-led radical bloc, it will open the door to reviving the old Eastern Front against Israel and adding an Iranian military presence around its borders. Obama is concerned but fears any Israeli military action would jeopardize his nuclear dialogue with Iran.

Ahmadinejad is strong enough to flout the supreme leader and parliament, strengthen his hard-line team without deferring to either and toughen Iran's bargaining posture against the Six Powers on Iran's nuclear program.

Nuclear Energy Commission Director Ali Akhbar Salehi was appointed Iran's new foreign minister Monday, Dec. 13 – while renewed nuclear diplomacy was in midstream - to make sure the Six World Powers understood that Tehran was determined to go full speed ahead with its nuclear weapon program and would give no quarter in its drive to evict US influence from the Middle East and Arab world. Manoucher Mottaki learned he had been dropped while on an official tour of Africa.

US, British and Israeli secret services are getting set for Iran to retaliate for the attacks of which they are accused on its top nuclear physicists. debkafile's Iranian sources report that the last straw were the Nov. 29 attacks on two scientists in central Tehran. The Iranians are publicly fingering the US, Israel and the UK in unfolding blasts of vilification to warn them they have crossed red lines and will face the consequences.

Moscow has not only accepted the West's conviction that Iran is aiming for a nuclear bomb, but is ready for the ultimate penalty of an air and sea blockade against Tehran. Washington is looking behind Russia's change of face for ulterior motives.

Ahmadinejad is driven by a fanatical belief that an Iranian nuclear bomb will bring about the coming of the Shiite messiah, the Mahdi. A new book just out in Beirut discloses his belief that he has been entrusted with the secret mission of providing the Mahdi with this weapon.

Shortly before the Six Power talks with Iran resumed this week, US President Barack Obama ordered the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier to withdraw from Guff waters opposite Iran and redeploy in the Aegean Sea. This action signaled Washington's switch to the search for middle ground on the nuclear controversy through diplomatic engagement - just six weeks after he opted for a build-up of military pressure on Tehran, debkafile's military sources report.

Production of Iran's first batch of uranium yellowcake marked just one of Tehran's two nuclear leaps forward ahead of the resumption of its nuclear talks with the Six Powers in Geneva Monday, Dec. 6. The second breakthrough, disclosed by debkafile, is Iran's accumulation of 23.5 kilos of 19.75 percent enriched uranium. This can be topped by January to the full 28.2 kilos needed for weapons-grade production. So Tehran sat down for talks in a strong bargaining position.