Iran the news again...................

[Shammu]

Ahmadinejad says U.S. remains Iran's enemy
15:44    12/ 11/ 2007
   
TEHRAN, November 12 (RIA Novosti) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that the resumption of talks with Washington on security issues in Iraq did not reflect any changes in Tehran's attitude toward the U.S.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini earlier said that Tehran was ready to continue talks with the U.S. on Iraq security after the successful completion of negotiations last summer.

"The talks with the Americans are related to security in Iraq and are being held at the request of the Iraqi people and government," Ahmadinejad said, addressing a group of students at the Science and Industry University in Tehran.

"Our position toward the United States remains unchanged, however - the U.S. is conducting a vengeful and hostile policy against the interests of the Iranian people," he said.

The first round of official negotiations between Tehran and Washington took place in Baghdad in late May, and were the first direct talks between the two countries for 27 years. The main issues discussed were the situation in Iraq and the release of Iranian diplomats seized by the U.S. in January in Iraq on suspicion of aiding Iraqi militants.

The second round was held in July, also in Baghdad, and the three sides agreed to set up a trilateral committee on Iraqi security.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said at the time that Tehran might consider consultations between the countries deputy foreign ministers "if the United States files an official request".

However, Iran remains the subject of international concern over its controversial nuclear program. The U.S. and Europe suspect Iran of pursuing a clandestine weapons program. Tehran says it needs the program for energy.

Two sets of UN Security Council sanctions are currently in place against Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment that could be used in both electricity generation and weapons production. A further round of more stringent sanctions has been blocked by China and Russia so far.

Ahmadinejad, who has recently faced growing domestic criticism over his no compromise attitude, largely seen as to blame for subsequent U.N. Security Council sanctions, called on Monday his critics "traitors," and pledged to expose them if they continued to apply pressure over Tehran's nuclear enrichment.

"We are not exposing them right now because of some sensitive issues, but upon closure of the nuclear issue, we will reveal everything," Ahmadinejad said.

"These people are traitors," he said without specifying any names.

Ahmadinejad says U.S. remains Iran's enemy

[Littleboy]

Ahmadinejad says U.S. remains Iran's enemy

Good this let's me know that were on the "Right" side...
Did i tell you already that i wrote a letter to that rat looking puke a couple of years ago?
That he is about to find out who God really IS,
And that he should read of of their anceint history and he would find that all of
their old kings ended up Bowing to My God, The God of Abraham,
I also told him that i remember him from back in 1979 too.
I also told him that if he had any hairs, he would pick up the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah & a couple others,
I did'nt want to over whelm the poor little fella on our first date
YLBD

[Soldier4Christ]

'Iran nuke weaponry still full speed ahead'
Israel official cites 'incriminating information,' slams U.S. intel as 'politically charged'

Israel has "incriminating" information Iran has continued its nuclear weapons program, directly contradicting last week's U.S. intelligence report stating Iran suspended its ambition in 2003.

"The Iranians continue their push for nuclear weapons in specific ways, including the acquisition and development of missiles," said a senior Israeli security official who has access to classified Israeli defense material and intelligence reports on Iran.

"Iran hides its nuclear weapons program but it continues nonetheless," he told WND, indicating the U.S. estimate may have been "politically motivated."

The security official said Israel possesses "incriminating" information that Iran continues its purported drive to obtain nuclear weapons.

But he said the government here has not yet decided what to do regarding the information and material Israel purportedly possesses.

The official said the U.S. estimate has "many holes in it." He said Israel is "gravely concerned" the report may remove the U.S. military option against Iran from the table, and is likely to be the foundation for Russian and Chinese vetoes against further sanctions on Iran scheduled to be discussed tomorrow at the United Nations.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, which represents the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies, released its report last week judging with "high confidence" that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The report judged with "moderate confidence" that Iran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.

"But we do not know whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons," stated the NIE report.

The report totaled nine pages. The first page was a colored cover with no information. Four pages gave the background history of the NIE, with one page focusing on the scope of the report on Iran and another page including a coded chart on how to read the report. One page compared the report to a previous estimate.

Only two pages focused on the report's key judgments on Iran, which were worded as blanket statements and which were not backed up by any specific information released in the report.

The NIE report said some agencies judged Iran could produce enough enriched fissile material to make a nuclear weapon within two years – in line with some Israeli estimates – while other agencies, including the State Department's Intelligence and Research office, believe the earliest likely time Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium would be 2013.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today delicately criticized the NIE report, stating in a Knesset briefing Israel's stance on the Iranian nuclear issue would not change despite the American report.

He said Israel would continue to work alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency to "expose covert Iranian activities" and investigate its military program to develop nuclear weapons.

Olmert raised some questions about the U.S. report: "According to the assessment, Iran had a nuclear weapons program until at least 2003 and there is no positive report giving any explanation of where this program has disappeared to," he said.

Olmert's speech was a major departure from his previous public composure toward Israel's relationship with the U.S. The Israeli prime minister routinely states his government is "on the same page" with the Bush administration.

Israeli security officials, speaking to WND, said there were enormous holes in the NIE report that are very easy for the Jewish state to point out. One official said he was confident that "in time" the report would be "exposed as faulty."

Numerous news reports in recent days have attempted to punch holes in the NIE report.

London's Sunday Telegraph quoted a senior British official stating the UK believes Iran deliberately fed misinformation to the U.S. about its nuclear program.

The official expressed skepticism about the findings in the NIE report.

"We are skeptical about the report's findings. It's not as if the American intelligence are regarded as brilliant performers in that region," the official was quoted as telling the Telegraph.

"[The Iranians] say things on the phone because they know we are up on the phones. They say black is white," the official was quoted as saying.

In an interview today with Israel's Haaretz newspaper, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, said the report ignored Iranian uranium enrichment activities at the Iranian city of Natanz because that project was not secret.

Editorials in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times also questioned the NIE report. The Los Angeles Times quoted an expert questioning whether the report sufficiently stressed Iran's enrichment activities.

Meanwhile, at today's Knesset session, lawmakers here blasted the report and questioned America's commitment to Israel and its front against Iran.

"It cannot be that Bush is committed to peace as was declared at Annapolis, and then the Americans propagate such an intelligence report which contradicts the information we have proving Iran intends to obtain nuclear weapons," stated Minister Yitzhak Cohen, a member of the Shas party, a key coalition partner in Olmert's government.

Cohen compared the NIE report to what he said were faulty reports released by the U.S. during the Holocaust that Jews were not being killed in spite of information possessed by American intelligence of the existence of concentration camps.

"In the middle of the previous century the Americans received intelligence reports from Auschwitz on the packed trains going to the extermination camps. They claimed then that the railways were industrial. Their attitude today to the information coming out of Iran on the Iranians' intention to produce a nuclear bomb reminds one of their attitude during the Holocaust," stated Cohen.

[Shammu]

Iran students break campus gate in protest denouncing Ahmadinejad
Dec 9 08:24 AM US/Eastern

Iranian students staged a new demonstration at Tehran University on Sunday, damaging the main gate to allow outsiders into the campus and denouncing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, news agencies reported.

The protesters chanted slogans against the president and carried banners calling for the release of three fellow students who have been held since May in a high-profile case, the Fars news agency and state-run IRNA reported.

The reports did not disclose the number of students involved. Both news agencies said that the demonstration had been called by the radical wing of the Office to Foster Unity, a reformist student group.

"The students marched on the gate and damaged it, and this allowed several non-students to enter the campus. The students chanted slogans and carried protesting placards," IRNA reported.

"Ahmadi-Pinochet, Iran will not become Chile!" chanted the protesters, playing on the names of the Iranian president and late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Fars reported.

The students also burned a copy of Kayhan newspaper, the mouthpiece of the clerical establishment that is bitterly critical of the Iranian reformist movement, it said.

According to IRNA, anti-riot police were stationed outside the campus but did not intervene.

There has been a string of demonstrations at Tehran universities in past months as students protest against the replacement of liberal professors, pressure on activists by the authorities and the detention of three students.

The demonstration on Sunday was at least the second within a week at Tehran University after dozens of students held a similar protest on Tuesday.

Mehdi Arabshahi, a member of the central board of the Office to Foster Unity, said that 1,500 people joined the latest protest, although there was no confirmation of this figure from Iranian media.

Arabshahi told AFP that university security officials had initially shut the main gate in a bid to prevent large numbers gathering for the protest.

"But the students forced their way in and broke the gate so that others could enter.

"They protested against the detention of the students, the oppressive policies of the government and advocated rights for all Iranians," he added, saying that the participants included liberals and ethnic Kurds.

Arabshahi said the protest lasted for more than two hours after starting at 12:00 pm (0830 GMT) and that it was peaceful.

"We are gathered here to say students are alive and are critical of wrong polices," IRNA quoted another unnamed student as saying.

The demonstration came a day after the intelligence ministry said it had arrested an unspecified number of people using "fake student cards to hold an illegal demonstration" at Tehran University.

The timing of those arrests was not given, but it is likely that they took place before Friday which was annual students' day in Iran.

The case of the three detained students from Tehran's Amir Kabir University has become a major issue for the protesting students.

Detained since May, the trio were given jail sentences of up to three years in October on charges of printing anti-Islamic images in four student newspapers -- accusations they vehemently deny.

Reformist leaders such as former president Mohammad Khatami have openly called for the three to be released, but hardliners have said the gravity of their crimes means they must stay behind bars.

Meanwhile, a group of Islamist students held a counter-demonstration outside the offices of the Iranian judiciary to protest against the Tehran University gathering, Fars reported.

"We condemn the demonstrations by the liberals at Tehran University, which are supported financially and morally by the opposition and the enemies," one demonstrator told the agency.

"We are astonished that this is not prevented when they are growing bolder by the day."

Iran students break campus gate in protest denouncing Ahmadinejad

[Shammu]

Iran, IAEA in new talks to clear nuclear doubts
Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:09am EST

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran and a team from the U.N. nuclear watchdog started a fresh round of talks on Monday in Tehran to resolve doubts about the Islamic Republic's nuclear work, Iranian media reported.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation arrived in Iran's capital on Sunday, less than a week after a U.S. intelligence report said Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

Iran denies ever having had such a military program but welcomed the report that contradicted the U.S. administration's assertions that Tehran was actively working on a nuclear bomb.

"The nuclear negotiations started on Monday morning and will last three days," the semi-official news agency Fars reported.

Iran and the U.N. body agreed in August on a timetable to answer outstanding questions about nuclear activities which Tehran says are aimed at generating electricity.

Previous rounds of talks dealt with centrifuges used to enrich uranium and other issues. The new talks are expected to focus on questions about particles of arms-grade enriched uranium found by IAEA inspectors at Tehran's Technical University.

"The talks will be focused on the source of contamination," the report said without elaborating.

Enriched uranium can be used both for fuelling power plants and, if refined much further, for making bombs. But Iran says it wants to refine uranium only as an alternative source of electricity so it can export more of its oil and gas.

The IAEA said in a report last month Tehran was cooperating but not proactively. IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran was making "good progress" in solving questions about its plans.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed two sets of limited sanctions on Tehran for its refusal to halt enrichment, the part of Iran's program that most worries the West.

Last week's U.S. report released by the 16 intelligence agencies is expected to complicate U.S. efforts to push through new U.N. sanctions against Iran over its atomic work.

U.S. President George W. Bush said after the report that Iran still remained a danger because it was mastering technology with a military use.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters in Brussels that the bloc would pursue its line of offering negotiations to Iran over inducements to halt uranium enrichment while backing moves towards U.N. sanctions.

Iran, IAEA in new talks to clear nuclear doubts

[Soldier4Christ]

Mohamed ElBaradei is the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is sympathetic to the cause of islam. This is just another cover up/delay tactic that they are helping Iran with.

[Shammu]

Mohamed ElBaradei is the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is sympathetic to the cause of islam. This is just another cover up/delay tactic that they are helping Iran with.

Your right brother, this is going to be a cover-up to help Iran.

[Shammu]

Exile group says Iran still pursuing nuclear arms
Tue 11 Dec 2007, 15:30 GMT

By Mark John

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - An Iranian exile group accused Tehran on Tuesday of pursuing efforts to develop nuclear weapons, dismissing as incomplete a U.S. intelligence report that Iran's nuclear arms programme was frozen in 2003.

Sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a study published on December 3 that Iran had stopped activities aimed at making nuclear weapons in 2003, though it continues to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel.

 The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which first exposed Iran's nuclear fuel programme in 2002, said it published information three years ago alleging that Tehran had restarted weapons-related work after a short break.

NCRI officials said they checked back with sources inside Iran after the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was released, and those informants reported that work on nuclear weapons was still being pursued at three sites.

"The clerical regime is continuing its drive to obtain nuclear weapons," Mohammad Mohaddessin of the France-based group, listed as a terror organisation in the United States, told a news conference in Brussels.

Iran's president, who denies his country is seeking the atomic bomb, rejected the NRCI allegations.

"This group cannot be the basis for correct information," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a news conference in Tehran.

The NIE report concluded that Iran had not restarted its nuclear weapons programme as of mid-2007. The halt applied to work on explosive device components and to uranium conversion activities, it said.

That conclusion contradicted earlier assertions by the Bush administration that Tehran was determined to develop the bomb.

Analysts say it could complicate the U.S. drive for a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran.

Tehran welcomed the report as proof Bush wanted to deceive the world about a nuclear arms programme it has denied pursuing. But major powers said their policy remained one of seeking negotiations with Tehran over inducements to suspend uranium enrichment, while threatening it with sanctions.

NEW SITES

Mohaddessin said the NCRI agreed with the NIE assessment that activities were suspended in 2003, and specified that in March 2003 Iran closed down a weaponisation site in Lavisan, northeast Tehran, fearing it might be detected.

But it transferred the weapons activities to a new site in Lavisan and later to two additional sites, information the NCRI had made public from November 2004 onwards, he said.

Asked how Washington's entire intelligence community and the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, could have missed evidence of this, he said: "Exactly as they missed Natanz (Iran's uranium enrichment plant) and (the original) Lavisan."

Mohaddessin said the new Lavisan site hosted research on laser enrichment of uranium, while two whole-body counters -- used for detecting radiation -- were in use at a university in the central city of Isfahan and a hospital outside Tehran.

He said Iran continued research after 2003 on a bomb initiator and on other technologies that could be used in a nuclear bomb.

Mohaddessin acknowledged that some of those technologies had civilian uses but concluded: "It is very obvious that the clerical regime resumed its military activities in 2004."

NCRI officials said their sources included people with contacts with high-ranking Iranian officials, military officers and the Revolutionary Guard, as well as individuals working inside the new Lavisan facility.

The NCRI's armed wing, the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), is banned in the United States and the EU.

The PMOI has bases in Iraq. It began as a leftist-Islamist opposition to the late Shah but fell out with Shi'ite clerics who took power after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Western analysts say the PMOI has little support in Iran because of its collaboration with Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Exile group says Iran still pursuing nuclear arms

[Shammu]

Uranium found at Tehran university
Tue. 11 Dec 2007

The Press Association

Iranian and United Nations nuclear officials began a new round of talks after traces of weapons-grade uranium that were found at a university in Tehran, it was reported.

Meanwhile, in Washington, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said the US and European allies Britain, France and Germany would continue to press Russia and China on the need to boost pressure on Iran to halt its controversial uranium enrichment.

It was not clear from Monday's IRNA news agency report how or when the weapons-grade uranium contamination was discovered at the Technology Faculty of a state university.

The meeting between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegation and its Iranian hosts comes in the wake of a surprising US intelligence report last week that concluded Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons programme in late 2003 and had not resumed it since.

Mohamed ElBaradei is the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He is sympathetic to the cause of islam. This is just another cover up/delay tactic that they are helping Iran with.

The weapons programme is separate from uranium enrichment, which Iran continues to undertake and which experts say could make it possible for Tehran to still develop a nuclear weapon between 2010 and 2015.

The United States and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, but Tehran has denied the charges, saying the uranium enrichment is only geared towards generating electricity, not a nuclear bomb.

Monday's talks also follow an IAEA report last month which stated Iran had been generally truthful about its past uranium enrichment activities. Much of the 10-page report focused on Iran's black-market procurements and past development of uranium enrichment technology.

But the talks in Tehran focused on the university find. It is believed this was the first time the incident was discussed.

The IAEA's mandate obliges it to investigate a country's nuclear activities and probe all suspicious findings, such as the traces at Tehran university.

In 2003, the IAEA revealed other incidents where traces of weapons-grade uranium were found elsewhere in the country, but Iran at the time said those traces came from imported equipment that had been contaminated before it was purchased.

Uranium found at Tehran university

[Soldier4Christ]

Would Saudis use economic pressure to force U.S. attack on Iran?

An Israel author and Middle East pundit believes Saudi Arabia is using economic pressure to compel the United States to launch military operations against rival Iran.

It is a question of Sunni vs. Shiite, and Avi Lipkin says that oil-rich and Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia does not want to share power with a belligerent and Shiite-dominated Iran. With Iran already being chastised by the United States over its nuclear program and its involvement in the terrorist insurgency in Iraq, Lipkin believes the Saudis are taking advantage of the situation to quietly compel the U.S. to disable its Middle East competitor.

"If America doesn't defend ... the Sunnis from the Shiites, the Sunnis will say, 'well, you're not our allies, we won't sell you oil, and we will pull our money out of Wall Street,'" argues Lipkin.

He believes Saudi Arabia may already be trying to send Washington a message with the decline of the U.S. dollar. "I would not be surprised that part of the fall of the value of the dollar was as a result of the Saudis pulling some of their money out of Wall Street," he offers.

Lipkin believes the U.S. recognizes the economic realities of dependence on Saudi oil and might have no choice but to eventually take military action against Iran.

[Shammu]

Lipkin believes the U.S. recognizes the economic realities of dependence on Saudi oil and might have no choice but to eventually take military action against Iran.

If the United States does attack Iran, that may bring about Ezekiel. Iran and the other nations aligning against Israel in retaliation. Course Syria being closer, Damascus might be bombed back to the "stone age." and that would fulfill Isaiah 17.

[Soldier4Christ]

Russia makes 1st nuke shipment to Iran 
Bushehr plant at center of international tensions over program

Russia has made its first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran's Bushehr plant, which is at the center of the international tensions over Tehran's nuclear program, the Foreign Ministry said Monday.

Iran contends the nuclear power plant operation in Bushehr is strictly for civilian purposes, but the project concerns the United States and others who fear Tehran could use it to advance efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Construction at Bushehr had been frequently delayed. Officials said the delays were due to payment disputes, but many observers suggested Russia also was unhappy with Iran's resistance to international pressure to make its nuclear program more open and to assure the international community that it was not developing nuclear arms.

"All fuel that will be delivered will be under the control and guarantees of the International Atomic Energy Agency for the whole time it stays on Iranian territory," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "Moreover, the Iranian side gave additional written guarantees that the fuel will be used only for the Bushehr nuclear power plant."

Russia announced last week that its construction disputes with Iran had been resolved and said fuel deliveries would begin about a half year before Bushehr was expected to go into service.

Iran confirmed that it had received the shipment, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported.

"The first nuclear fuel shipment for the Bushehr atomic power plant arrived in Iran Monday," IRNA quoted Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh as saying.

Two weeks ago, a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate report concluded that Iran had halted efforts to develop nuclear weapons in 2003 and that the program had been frozen through at least the middle of this year.

Although Russia has resisted drives to impose sanctions on Iran, it also repeatedly has urged Tehran to cooperate with the Vienna, Austria-based IAEA to resolve concerns over the nuclear program.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov underlined that position last week after a meeting in Moscow with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki.

Lavrov said resolving the controversy is possible "solely on the basis of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, IAEA rules and principles and, certainly, with Iran proving its right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy."

Officials at Atomstryexport, the Russian contractor for Bushehr, raised the prospect last week of creating a Russian-Iranian joint venture "to ensure security" at the Bushehr plant, according to the RIA-Novosti agency.

That could indicate Russian interest in ensuring that enriched uranium at the plant is not stolen or diverted. Depleted fuel rods also could be reprocessed into plutonium.

[Soldier4Christ]

Iran: U.S. report a 'declaration of surrender'
'It was a positive action ... to change their attitude and it was a correct move'

Iran's president said on Sunday the publication of a U.S. intelligence report saying Iran had halted a nuclear weapons program in 2003 amounted to a "declaration of surrender" by Washington in its row with Tehran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also dismissed in an interview with state television the prospect of new U.N. sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt sensitive atomic work.

"It is too far-fetched," he said when asked whether he expected the U.N. Security Council to impose fresh sanctions on Iran following two such resolutions since last December.

Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, told a rally earlier this month that the December 3 publication of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate was a "victory" for Iran.

He said on Sunday: "It was in fact a declaration of surrender ... It was a positive action by the U.S. administration to change their attitude and it was a correct move."

Washington is still pushing for more sanctions on Iran despite the U.S. intelligence report, which also said Tehran was continuing to master skills needed to make nuclear weapons. U.S. President George W. Bush said Iran was still a danger.

An exiled opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), last week said Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but said restarted it a year later, dispersing equipment to thwart international inspectors.

Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and designed to make electricity. It says it has never had a nuclear weapons program.

"It would be beneficial for both Iran and them (the West) to cooperate with Iran," Ahmadinejad said. "Of course it would be more to their benefit than Iran's."

Iran regularly calls for a change in behavior from the United States, which cut diplomatic ties with Iran in 1980 after radical students seized the U.S. embassy and took diplomats hostage during the 1979 Islamic revolution.

[Soldier4Christ]

Iran making push into Nicaragua

Web Posted: 12/17/2007 12:35 PM CST

Todd Bensman
Express-News

MONKEY POINT, Nicaragua — The second military helicopter in as many days hovered over the jungle and then landed to a most unwelcome reception from several dozen angry Rama Indian and Creole villagers.

Rupert Allen Clear Duncan, a leader of some 400 Creole who live along the shoreline, confronted the foreigners dressed in suits and military uniforms that day in March and demanded to know the purpose of their aerial trespasses.

"This is our land; we have always lived here, and you don't have our permission to be here," Duncan spat, when refused the courtesy of an explanation.

Not until Duncan threatened to have his machete-waving followers damage the aircraft did they learn that some of the men were from the Islamic Republic of Iran and had come promising to establish a Central American foothold in the middle of their territory.

As part of a new partnership with Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, Iran and its Venezuelan allies plan to help finance a $350 million deep-water port at Monkey Point on the wild Caribbean shore, and then plow a connecting "dry canal" corridor of pipelines, rails and highways across the country to the populous Pacific Ocean. Iran recently established an embassy in Nicaragua's capital.

In feeling threatened by Iran's ambitions, the people of Monkey Point have powerful company. The Iranians' arrival in Nicaragua comes as the Bush administration and some European allies hold the threat of war over Iran to force an end to its uranium enrichment program and alleged help to anti-U.S. insurgents in Iraq.

 What worries state department officials, former national security officials and counterterrorism researchers is that, if attacked, Iran could stage strikes on American or allied interests from Nicaragua, deploying the Iranian terrorist group Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guard operatives already in Latin America. Bellicose threats by Iran's clerical leadership to hit American interests worldwide if attacked, by design or not, heighten the anxiety.

"The bottom line is if there is a confrontation with Iran, and Iran gets bombed, I have absolutely no doubt that Iran is going to lash out globally," said John R. Schindler, a veteran former counterintelligence officer and analyst for the National Security Agency.

"The Iranians have that ability, particularly from South America. Hezbollah has fronts all over Latin America. That is not new. But it's certainly something we're starting to care about now."

American policymakers already had been fretting in recent years over Tehran's successful forging of diplomatic relations, direct air routes and embassy swaps with populist South American governments that abhor the U.S., such as President Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. But Iran's latest move places it just a few porous borders from Texas, where illegal Nicaraguan laborers routinely travel.

 The disquiet with this proximity is rooted in Iran's track record and Bush administration saber rattling that has gone unabated despite a recent National Intelligence Estimate report that concluded Iran could build nuclear weapons if it wanted but had ended a clandestine weapons program.

Diplomats or terrorists

Four consecutive American administrations have designated the Islamic theocracy a State Sponsor of Terrorism since 1984 for ordering Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence operatives, sometimes posing as diplomats, to conduct bombings, assassinations and kidnappings worldwide.

Among the more indelible of these were the suicide bombings of Marines in Beirut, the 1996 Kobar Tower bombing in Saudi Arabia and assassinations from Beirut to Washington.

Few Nicaragua observers believe Iran seriously plans to follow through on any of its $500 million promises or has any obvious need for trade ties with one of Latin America's poorest countries.

Opposition politicians say they understand why Iran might want relations with oil-rich Venezuela and Bolivia but wonder aloud if Iran really is so interested in Nicaraguan bananas as their return on investment.

Those who view Iranian intentions with suspicion point to the new Iranian diplomatic mission in Managua as one reason for all the promises.

"They use their embassies to smuggle in weapons. They used them to develop and execute plans," said Oliver "Buck" Revell, who served as associate deputy director over FBI intelligence and international affairs. "Diplomats have immunity coming and going. It is a protected center for both espionage and, on occasion, for specific operations. So an embassy in Managua is definitely an area that will be of concern to our national security apparatus."

Front and center on many minds is Argentina's contention that Iran, using its embassy as cover, orchestrated two Hezbollah bombings of Israeli and Jewish community targets in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

 This year, Argentina secured Interpol arrest warrants for five former Iranian officials, most of them who worked as diplomats in the Buenos Aires embassy. Iran denies Argentina's charges.

Also in recent months, the U.S. military repeatedly has accused Iran's Revolutionary Guard of using diplomatic cover in Iraq to help insurgents kill American soldiers. Iran denies that charge too. In October, the Bush administration and Congress designated the Revolutionary Guard and its elite arm, the Quds force, as global terror organizations.

Israel is worried about Nicaragua, too, noting the Israeli business community in next-door Costa Rica, Jewish populations throughout Latin America and Iran's repeated vows to militarily destroy the Jewish state. Israel has promised to take action alone if diplomacy fails to halt Iran's nuclear programs.

Said one Israeli envoy in the region who requested anonymity, "It's just that they could use their diplomatic infrastructure to repeat Argentina. They'll promise millions, they won't send a penny. But they will send a delegation."

Publicly so far, U.S. administration officials, who opposed Ortega's bid for the presidency last year, aren't saying much. But privately, State Department officials in Washington hint that Iran's move to Nicaragua — and Ortega's warm reception — isn't being taken lightly.

Some intelligence experts presume the Iranian move to Nicaragua already has stepped up foreign espionage operations to an extent not seen since in that country since the Cold War.

To be sure, not everyone views the Iranian move to Managua as nefarious. Some foreign policy analysts depict Iran's outreach to anyone offering a welcome mat as a logical response to defeat two rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions and gain voting U.N. friends as more rounds are contemplated.

"Iran has its own foreign policy. They're just trying to extend their influence," said Peter Rodman, a senior fellow in foreign policy for the Brookings Institute. "They'll stick to economic activity."

Other analysts see as entirely logical that Iran would project a deterrent in America's backyard to make Washington think twice about military action.

"When you've got Washington calling you evil, and there's a steady stream of reports from Washington about bombing campaigns, what would you do if you were an Iranian strategic planner?" said Dennis Jett, dean of the International Center at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "These guys have a track record of using diplomats and diplomatic missions as a mechanism for terrorism, so why wouldn't they be making that calculation now?"

A mystery compound

Twelve-foot-high concrete walls topped by neat rolls of razor-sharp concertina wire protect the manicured grounds of a mansion inside. The compound is not unlike many others in the affluent Managua suburb of Las Colinas, except for a telltale identifier.

From the street outside, through the wire at just the right angle, can be seen the top half of the distinctive red, white and green flag of Iran. This is the temporary embassy of Iran's new envoy to Nicaragua, Akbar Esmaeil-Pour.

The envoy, however, hasn't been in a talking mood lately, since local media stirred just the sort of questions that fuel Yankee fears. Last month, the country's largest-circulation newspaper, La Prensa, published leaked government documents that showed Nicaragua's chief immigration minister personally authorized 21 Iranian men to enter the country, without visas that would have left a record.

Officials denied the report until confronted with the document but refused to explain why the men were let in that way or what became of them.

Another report named as Revolutionary Guard operatives several men who accompanied the Iranian envoy to his new digs. A Honduran newspaper in June reported that Iranians had entered that country without permission from Nicaragua.

Knocks on embassy gates over four days recently drew Nicaragua national police guards and two polite aides but no interview. A call to Esmaeil-Pour's private cell phone showed how much curiosity his presence has stoked lately.

"I've had hundreds of requests for interviews, and yours is only one! I'm very busy," the ambassador snapped before hanging up.

The Ortega government also wouldn't talk as internal criticism mounts about the country's new alliance. But politicians from his Sandinista Party were quick to defend the country's right to relations with Iran or any other country willing to invest in Nicaragua. Several predicted Iran would follow through and said Nicaragua never would knowingly allow terrorist activity.

"Nicaragua's agenda in its international relations does not depend on whether a third country has good or bad relations with x or y country," said Walmaro Gutierrez, a Sandinista Party congressmen. "To identify a country as terrorist just because of nationality, race, ethnicity or religion is discriminatory. I want to make clear we have signed the (U.N.) international convention against terrorism. We are very responsible."

Opening the door

No one disagrees that old grudges and American neglect helped open the door for Iran. From 1980 to 1988, the CIA clandestinely fielded the Contra rebels for a guerilla war on Ortega's Soviet-backed regime, at one point funding them from secret arms sales to a Sandinista ally at the time, Iran.

Ortega boasts solid anti-American credentials, aligning in the old days with Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, and more recently defending Iran's right to develop nuclear bombs.

U.S. relations with Ortega's successors improved during the 1990s, but did not entail much in the way of foreign aid that could be leveraged now.

Nicaragua remains neglected, with the western hemisphere's third-lowest per-capita income, a vast foreign debt and energy shortages so profound that electricity must be rationed.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saw opportunity in Ortega's election. He was in Managua talking about hydroelectric and oil projects the week of Ortega's January inauguration. By August, Ahmadinejad had committed to fantastic promises that, along with Monkey Point, include fixing the Pacific port of Corinto and building 10,000 houses.

Ortega's alignment with Iran and Venezuela is causing some political blowback that may erode his thin public support. Some opposition leaders and reform-minded Sandinistas don't like that Nicaragua has taken sides in a fight that doesn't involve it.

Recent presidential candidate Eduardo Montelegre, who finished as the runner-up to Ortega, said Ortega is "irresponsible" to risk Nicaragua's rebounding trade and good standing with the West by providing Iran a possible staging ground — even unwittingly.

"This is very simple. You draw a line between democracy and terrorist countries, and we don't want to be on the wrong side of the line," Montelegre said. "If the U.S. goes to war on Iran, those who are on the wrong side are not going to fare well."

But most Nicaraguans hardly can afford to consider such intrigue. They are living hand-to-mouth existences in slums or squatting on bits of land. Sufficient numbers of them voted to elect Ortega and don't seem to particularly care who he brings to the dinner table.

Neglected port

A pile of scrap metal, rusted to a brownish orange, is all that remains of oil tanks that CIA-led Contras blew up in a 1983 speedboat raid on Nicaragua's port town of Corinto. The shrapnel-riddled tanks stood until just four months ago, when new Sandinista port directors decided to tear them down.

The pile symbolizes a new dawn for Nicaragua, insisted Absalón Martínez Navas, the neglected port's newly installed Sandinista vice manager.

"We have investors," Navas announced. "It's nothing concrete yet. But we're making studies. We're making plans, not only to develop the port but also the community."

One of the biggest backers, he said, is going to be the Iranian government. Probably. Two months earlier, the Iranians signaled they were serious when they sent a top transportation official to tour the port's crumbling surfaces, decommissioned warehouses and out-of-date machinery.

cont'd