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Speaking in a closed meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Thursday that he is not troubled by the possibility that an investigative committee could be formed after a theoretical Israeli strike on Iran.

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Two officials who attended the meeting, who asked to remain nameless, said that the majority of those present left the meeting feeling that Netanyahu remains steadfast in his determination not to rely on the United States, and can be expected to order the IDF to attack Iran in the coming months.

Others present at the meeting however, pointed out that Netanyahu’s comments seemed to be part of the “psychological warfare” campaign that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are conducting, in order to pressure the U.S. into attacking Iran itself.

At one point during the meeting, a participant asked Netanyahu what he thinks could possibly happen the day after an Israeli strike on Iran. According to one official present at the meeting, the question angered Netanyahu. “If an investigative committee is formed, I’ll go and say that I, I am responsible,” said Netanyahu, as he pounded the table, and his chest, with his fist.

The fuming Netanyahu didn’t stop there. “I’ve had enough of this atmosphere,” he said. “It’s also felt in other discussions [on Iran], people keep showing me presentations prepared as if for an investigative committee. I’ve told them to stop with these presentations, stop speaking on protocol, and get to the point,” said Netanyahu.

Netanyahu made it clear to those present that he prefers that the U.S. “do the work,” though he admits that the U.S. is not prepared to pursue a military option at this point.

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SAUDI Arabia has decided to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council, a move that could lead to new sanctions, but Tehran dismissed allegations it plotted to kill a top Saudi envoy as a ploy to isolate it.

‘Saudi Arabia's permanent mission to the United Nations, formally requested the United Nations Secretary-General to notify the Security Council of the heinous conspiracy,’ the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported, citing a statement from the kingdom's U.N. mission.

The United States on Tuesday said it had uncovered a plot by two men with links to Iran's security forces to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, by
planting a bomb in a Washington restaurant.

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It's a threat - technically an assault (use of words that put fear into the person directed of a battery) but without proof of taking steps to kill you the sentence is rendered next to meaningless and to punish as in some states with the death penalty for saying something without taking the neceassry steps is an abhorrent peversion of justice. An assault without the battery like a murder charge without a body or steps taken to commit a murder the threat to kill is just that - a threat and is not punishable by death as murder.

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Report: America’s Plan for Attack on Iran

United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was in Israel this week to talk with Israeli leaders about Iran’s nuclear program. Now the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot is reporting that Panetta shared America’s contingency plan in case talks with Iran fail to halt its nuclear program.

The plan would reportedly be put into effect only in one and a half years. Israeli leaders have indicated that Israel may pursue a military strike much sooner – possibly in the next three months.

The plan published Friday is a two-stage operation, in which warplanes launched from the Strait of Hormuz strike first. The second stage includes the use of bunker-buster missiles.

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What had been whispered up to a week or two ago is now publicly audible. The possibility of Israel attacking nuclear facilities in Iran in coming months, before the November presidential elections in the U.S., is a topic of detailed public debate. In the past 72 hours, three former top guns of Israeli intelligence discussed the subject with unnerving candor. Two of them expressed opposition to a unilateral Israeli attack under present circumstances.

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Do these former security chiefs know something which remains opaque to the public? Former IDF intelligence officers continue to have access to security system briefings, even though they are not brought into the actual planning process of a secret military operation. No less importantly, they know how to analyze disclosed, public data − and developments of the past weeks teaches them that the likelihood of an Israeli decision in favor of an attack is now higher than it has been previously.

Bjonsson wrote..

Before the end of WW2, the Jewish and Islamic Palestinians lived side by side in relative peace.

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Sacrificing Iran's queen

There is speculation in Tehran that the wily and pragmatic former president Akbar Hashem Rafsanjani will shortly - at the Eid-ul-Fitr celebration of the end of Ramadan later this month - be mandated by the Supreme Leader to negotiate a solution to Iran's nuclear problems.

Rafsanjani's star has been rising as rapidly as President Ahmadinejad's is descending. So on the one hand, we have seen Rafsanjani being restored to a more influential role as head of Iran's Expediency Council, which is one of three key Iranian political institutions. On the other hand, we see death sentences for a multi-billion dollar banking fraud being handed out to individuals associated with factions in the presidential camp.

If Rafsanjani - or anyone else - is indeed to be given the authority to make major concessions to address the nuclear demands made by the P5+1 - the United Nations Security Council permanent five members plus Germany - then the result could be extremely interesting.

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Israel upgrades missile shield over Iran, Syria fears

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Rumsfeld: Israel needn't notify US about strike

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Iran upgrades its MiG 29 fighter jets with modern electronics

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During a meeting on Sunday, the MPs sitting on the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee and the commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Naval Force and the Iranian Navy will discuss the latest developments in regard to the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

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ISIS: Iran completed clean-up of nuclear evidence at military site

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PM: Israel won't be spared even if US attacks Iran

In closed talks, Netanyahu says missiles will be fired at Israel even if US strikes Iran but admits likelihood of US strike is small

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Iran's new space center boosts rocket plan

Iran is reported to be putting the finishing touches on a secret new space center to launch satellites into orbit, a step Western analysts say will move the Islamic Republic closer to developing intercontinental ballistic missiles.

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Al-Arabiya Video: Syria Rebels Say Hostages Iranian Guards

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Gulf Arab countries to discuss unity in September (Reuters)

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Netanyahu said to have told closed meeting: Khamenei is not a rational leader

PM also quoted as saying Iran ‘means it when it talks of destroying Israel,’ and ‘there’s no defense against a nuclear hit’

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Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is not a rational leader, just like the leader of North Korea. They are unpredictable,” the prime minister was quoted as saying.

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The prime minister apparently tried to calm any concerns that his policy in Iran is anything but grounded in reality. “I am not messianic,” he reportedly said — a reference to the accusation leveled by former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin that Netanyahu and Barak are “messianistic” in their policy formulations.

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Netanyahu said to have told closed meeting: Khamenei I am not a rational leader

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New intelligence reveals Iran closer to attaining nuclear weapon than previously thought

A Western diplomat who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss intelligence information said the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Israel agree on that assessment.

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Last month Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has established a new team of 60 nuclear scientists to develop Iran's military nuclear program at the Lavizan base near Tehran. In 2006, IAEA inspectors visited that base, which belongs to the Guards' missile development agency.

The Daily Telegraph based its report on information from the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen al-Khalq. Members of the group told the paper that the work of the Iranian scientists in the "weapons group" is at an advanced facility involved warheads and detonators.

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The Ugandan option

Netanyahu told U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that an Israeli or American military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities was likely to help topple the ayatollah regime, just as the 1976 Entebbe raid led to the defeat of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, according to a senior Israeli official.

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If Iran gets a nuclear bomb it may actually use it, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Monday, rejecting the notion that Tehran would act responsibly if it became a member of the world’s nuclear “club.”

Netanyahu, in a meeting with visiting Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, spelled out five things that would likely happen, were Iran allowed to go nuclear: There will be nuclear proliferation in the Middle East as various other actors will then want to have a bomb; Iran will have a firmer hand on the “choke point of the world’s oil supply,” namely the Strait of Hormuz; there will be a magnification of global terrorism because the terrorists under Iran’s sway will believe that they have immunity; and Israel’s cities will be rocketed even more because those firing the rockets will feel that they enjoy a nuclear umbrella.

That the Iranians might actually use the bomb is a reality that cannot be denied, Netanyahu said.

“This is a regime that has broken every rule in the book,” he added. “They very likely could use weapons of mass death.”

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New intelligence reveals Iran closer to attaining nuclear weapon than previously thought

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If Iran gets a nuclear bomb it may actually use it, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Monday