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01/28/2006:

"57% Back a Hit on Iran if Defiance Persists"

WASHINGTON — Despite persistent disillusionment with the war in Iraq, a majority of Americans supports taking military action against Iran if that country continues to produce material that can be used to develop nuclear weapons, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The poll, conducted Sunday through Wednesday, found that 57% of Americans favor military intervention if Iran's Islamic government pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.

Support for military action against Tehran has increased over the last year, the poll found, even though public sentiment is running against the war in neighboring Iraq: 53% said they believe the situation there was not worth going to war.

The poll results suggest that the difficulties the United States has encountered in Iraq have not turned the public against the possibility of military actions elsewhere in the Middle East.

Support for a potential military confrontation with Iran was strongest among Republican respondents, among whom 76% endorsed the idea. But even among Democrats, who overwhelmingly oppose the war in Iraq, 49% supported such action.
latimes.com


Iran: We'll Shut Down Straits of Hormuz
A senior Iranian official is threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz using military force, which would effectively shut down the Persian Gulf oil supply - if European supports economic sanctions against Iran in a bid to halt Tehran's nuclear program.

"If Europe does not act wisely with the Iranian nuclear portfolio and it is referred to the U.N. Security Council and economic or air travel restrictions are imposed unjustly, we have the power to halt oil supply to the last drop from the shores of the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz," said Mohammed-Nabi Rudaki, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

According to the Israeli News service Haaretz, which first reported the threat on Tuesday based on an Iranian news account - this is the first time an Iranian official has publicly issued a military threat.


Iran vows to put Israel into 'eternal coma' if attacked
Were Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran would respond so strongly that it would put the Jewish state into "an eternal coma" like Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's, the Iranian defense minister said yesterday.

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has said his country would not accept Iran's acquiring nuclear weapons under any circumstances. He stopped short of threatening a military strike against Iran, but he said Israel was preparing for the possible failure of diplomatic negotiations with Iran.

A newscaster on Iranian state television read out a response from Iran's minister of defense, Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, yesterday.

"Zionists should know that if they do anything evil against Iran, the response of Iran's armed forces will be so firm that it will send them into eternal coma, like Sharon," Najjar said.

Isn't all this posturing just too convenient?


Iran accuses U.S., Britain and Israel of role in 2 plane crashes
TEHRAN - Iran said Thursday it had information that the United States, Britain and Israel had a role in two deadly military plane crashes in the last two months.

It was the latest accusation by Tehran against the West in their sharpening confrontation. A day earlier, Iran blamed the United States and Britain for two bombings this week that killed at least nine people in southwestern Iran.

"The information we have says that the U.S, Britain and Israel's intelligence agents intended to create insecurity in Iran," Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi told reporters on the sidelines of a police seminar. "Even my evaluation says that the crash of our C-130 and Falcon planes was done by their design, or maybe electronic interference."


Iran to Give Georgia Emergency Gas Supply
Georgia's president said Friday that Iran had agreed to start providing emergency gas supplies to the Caucasus mountain nation as early as this weekend, signaling an end to an energy crisis made worse by an extreme cold snap.

Russia, meanwhile, was close to completing repairs on a gas pipeline that would allow it to resume gas deliveries later Friday, an official said.

The electric utility in the capital of Tbilisi was providing 110 megawatts of electricity, while Azerbaijan was sending in 50 megawatts, Turkey 60 megawatts and Russia 65 megawatts. Still, Georgia needed 600 megawatts more to ensure a normal supply, the Georgian State Electric System said.

President Mikhail Saakashvili cut short his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday to try to calm fears that sent residents into long lines to fill kerosene canisters for portable heaters and some to chop down branches and trees to fuel stoves.

Saakashvili told his Cabinet that Iran had agreed to supply Georgia with gas via Azerbaijan beginning Sunday - or Monday, at the latest.

"The amount will be enough to restore electric and gas supplies," he said.

The latest energy crisis began last weekend, when an explosion on a major gas pipeline that runs through the Russian border region of North Ossetia cut supplies to many Georgian regions. Russian authorities blamed the blasts on saboteurs.

The misery worsened early Thursday when a fierce windstorm in western Georgia ruptured power lines leading from the Inguri hydroelectric station to eastern regions, leaving about 3 million people in the dark, Deputy Energy Minister Alexander Khetaguri said.

Then, a gas-powered unit of a Tbilisi power station shut down because of malfunctions, leaving most of Tbilisi's 1.5 millions residents - a third of the country's population - to scrounge for other heating options as a heavy snow fell and daytime temperatures fell to 17 degrees.