Israel Rehearses Bush Plans For Armageddon – UPDATE
Strike on Iran could turn Mideast into fireball, official says
- U.N. nuclear watchdog chief warns of dangers of military strike on Iran
- Attack may lead Iran to a more-aggressive nuclear stance, he says
- Iran official reportedly criticized the Israeli exercises
- Comments follow Israeli military maneuvers in early June
- U.S.: Israeli air exercise likely message to Iran
- Israeli politician threatens Iran with attack over nukes
- Report: Iran protests threats from Israeli official
Israelis ‘rehearse Iran attack’
Israel has carried out an exercise that appears to have been a rehearsal for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, US officials have told the New York Times.
More than 100 Israeli fighter jets took part in manoeuvres over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece in the first week of June, US officials said.
Iran insists its programme is peaceful, but Israel sees Iran’s development of the technology as a serious threat.
Tehran is defying a demand from the UN that it stop the enrichment of uranium.
The UN Security Council approved a third round of sanctions against Iran over the issue in March 2008.
The Israeli exercise, it seems, was designed to send a message to Tehran that Israel has the power and will to attack if it thought Iran was close to getting a nuclear weapon, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen reports.
None of what has been said and done so far means an attack on Iran is coming and talk of one faded out after US intelligence reported at the end of 2007 that Iran had given up its nuclear weapons programme, he notes.
Mofaz criticised over Iran threat
A key defence official has accused one of 
Israel’s deputy prime ministers of threatening to attack Iran in order to boost his own political standing.
Iran alleges assassination plot
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said there was a plot to kill him during a trip he took to Iraq in March, Iranian state radio reports.
Mr Ahmadinejad inferred that the United States and its allies were behind the alleged plot to kidnap and kill him.
In a recent interview, Ehud Olmert 
said the current international sanctions against Iran would probably not yield a positive result for Israel.
On June 6, Israeli deputy prime minister Shaul Mofaz threatened to wage war on Iran should the country continue its nuclear activities.
The Israeli regime accuses Tehran of pursuing a military nuclear program. Iran, however, insists that its enrichment activities are in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and that nuclear weapons have no place in its defense doctrine.
This is not a positive move. Israel and Bush are playing these War Games with NO regard for the rest of the world. Whatever motive they originally had to protect the fragile but vicious attitude that has engulfed Israel, threatens the whole world. Right now the world is too fragile to engage in risky behavior.
Oil prices jump after report of Israeli drill for Iran attack
Oil prices rose more than $3 on Friday after the New York Times reported that Israel held a military drill in apparent preparation for a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
A hardline Iranian cleric said on Friday that Israel and its U.S. ally would receive a “slap in the face” if they speak of using force against the Islamic Republic, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
A Pentagon official who the Times said was briefed on the exercise, said one goal was to practice flight tactics, aerial refueling and other details of a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear installations and long-range conventional missiles.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a second goal was to send a clear message that Israel was prepared to act militarily if other efforts to stop Iran from producing bomb-grade uranium fail.
“They wanted us to know, they wanted the Europeans to know, and they wanted the Iranians to know,” the Pentagon official said, according to the Times. “There’s a lot of signaling going on at different levels.”
Several U.S. officials told the newspaper they did not believe Israel had decided to attack Iran or think such a strike was imminent.
The clink and clank you hear is NOT the loose change in your pocket … it is the clank of sabers. As Bush has demonstrated, pre-emptive strikes are a costly mistake. If the goal is to topple a tyrant, that is the job of covert “black ops” and not thousands of young soldiers and contractors. The middle East knows that the Bush motive is a sick interpretation of Judeo-Christian Empire associated with Armageddon. America’s economic security will disappear for good, if Bush succeeds in lighting this fuse before he leaves.
