Wb News

Time is definitely beginning to slip away.  According to a new report from Israeli military intelligence, Iran has sped up its nuclear development and may have enough nuclear fuel to produce a bomb by the end of this year.

Iran already has a delivery system The Seji-2 missile, a two-stage missile, with a 2,000-kilometer range missile which is powered by solid fuel:

President Obama has said that he wants to give his "out reach" to the Iranian despot at least until the end of the year. It looks as if Ahmadinejad is racing ahead to make that deadline moot:

 Military Intelligence: Countdown to Iranian Nuke Bomb

by Hana Levi Julian

(IsraelNN.com) The head of the IDF Military Intelligence Research Division informed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Monday that Iran is only one year away from obtaining enough material for a nuclear weapon..

"By the end of the year, Iran may have enough fissile material for their first nuclear bomb," Brigadier-General Yossi Beiditz told the committee during the briefing. He added that Iran is developing its nuclear weaponry at a faster pace than before and that negotiations are unable to halt the process.

"Iran is extremely troubling due to its speed," he said. "It has missiles which can reach Israel. The Iranian clock precedes the international diplomacy clock." He added that for the time being, "The United States is determined to pursue diplomacy" with the Islamic Republic.

The information was not news to IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who had already warned the same committee a week earlier that he was preparing for any possibility.

"Iran continues with its plans," he told the MKs. "Its possession of nuclear weapons could destablize the entire Middle East. There is dialogue between the U.S. and Iran, with the prospects for success doubtful. For us as well, [diplomacy] would be the preferred way to stop [Iran's nuclear development] project. But as the chief of staff, I have to be prepared for any eventuality, and so this is what we are doing,"

While Western military and intelligence officials debated whether Iran has the capability to produce a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile, the Islamic Republic surprised the world last month by launching precisely such a weapon.

The Seji-2 missile, a two-stage missile, reached its intended target, according to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The 2,000-kilometer range missile is powered by solid fuel, and is reported to be a more advanced weapon than the country?"s previous Shihab missile series.

Beiditz told the committee that Hamas is continuing to successfully smuggle arms into Gaza, adding that Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is expecting U.S. President Barack Obama to pressure Israel into making more security concessions.

He also warned that the Hizbullah terrorist group remains a threat to Israel's north as well. "Hizbullah has deployed north and south of the Litani with missiles that can reach deep into Israel," he said.

Its deployment is a direct violation of United Nations Resolution 1701, the ceasefire agreement which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War.The Litani River, located 12 miles from the Israel's northern border, was to be a marker point below which Hizbullah terrorists were not allowed to re-group.

The U.N. Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were deployed in a buffer zone that was to be free of "any armed personnel" -- both Hizbullah terrorists and IDF soldiers -- between the river and the U.N.-drawn Blue Line in the southern sector of the country. The agreement also calls for "no sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its governPlease email me at yidwithlid@aol.com to be put onto my mailing list.

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• Lindsey Graham's protestations aside, it seems clear that there's neither the will nor the numbers to filibuster the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. I'm sure that won't stop Newt and Rush from alienating the rest of the country from the GOP, however.
  


• The president sent a letter to Max Baucus and Edward Kennedy reiterating his support for a public option for what feels like the inevitable health care reform bill that's slowly working its way through Congress. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein helpfully explains the relevance of MedPAC and why it might finally get some teeth, and Greg Sargent documents the Canadian influence.


• It's hard to disagree with the thesis of this Politico piece, that Obama is deliberately poaching GOP moderates for his administration in order to reduce the Republican party down to its core base of Southern supporters.
  


• The right has predictably been freaking out over a New York Times piece that asserts President Obama believes the United States could be "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." As usual, it helps to read the official transcript in these situations. The jury's still out on whether this is sillier than the latest mutterings coming from Michael Goldfarb.


• Mark Levin, last seen screaming at and berating a woman on the air, has a list of "The World's Most Deranged Bloggers." You'd think it would be a roll call of the Left's most pugnacious but actually it's four conservative pundits who tend to point out that people like Levin are nuts. It's odd to think that Levin, author of a book called "Liberty and Tyranny," apparently knows nothing about either subject, but we'll just call this Jonah Goldberg Syndrome from now on.


• Remainders: Tim Pawlenty suggests he'll do what the Minnesota Supreme Court tells him to do; Dave Weigel watches PajamasTV so you don't have to; and Stephen Colbert edits Newsweek?

--Mori Dinauer