WORLD AT WAR: 7.11.20 - Nukes Inevitable?

Nukes Inevitable? - Jim Fletcher - Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com At the same time a former head of the Mossad claimed nothing can be done to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, a mysterious explosion rocked Iran, leading to speculationthat some of its nuclear facilities had been targeted by you-know-who. The West has always been plagued by defeatists. Many of them threaten America today. Iran has claimed for years that it would wipe Israel off the map. Few fail to take them seriously, yet too many throw their hands up as if the threat can be realized. Orthat we must simply "get used to" the "new normal." While many politicians are weak and fail at the critical moment, I do not believe Benjamin Netanyahu will. If the mullahs in Iran are determined to do evil to God's Chosen,Netanyahu is equally determined to prevent it. Analysts believe the bombed site this week hides an underground tunnel system and missile systems. According to the Times of Israel: "What exploded in the incident early Friday that sent a massive fireball into the sky near Tehran remains unclear, as does the cause of the blast. The Fars news agency,which is close to the country's ultra-conservatives, initially reported that the blast was caused by 'an industrial gas tank explosion' near a facility belonging to the defense ministry. It cited an 'informed source' and said the site of the incident was notrelated to the military. "The unusual response of the Iranian government in the aftermath of the explosion, however, underscores the sensitive nature of an area near where international inspectorsbelieve the Islamic Republic conducted high-explosive tests two decades ago for nuclear weapon triggers." The site, about 10 miles east of downtown Tehran, is long thought by Western analysts of having relevance for Iran's military goals. Now, no one can say for certainty that the Israelis (and Americans?) were responsible for the blast, but the fact remains that Israel has pulled off amazing strikes againstIran and her proxies elsewhere in the Middle East. I've often felt that Netanyahu's family background-specifically his very great father, Benzion-would cause him to stand if a future moment required him to do so. I believehe is a Zionist above all else. Israel's current political climate though has seemingly forced upon Netanyahu a coalition partner, Benny Gantz's Blue and White Party. Color me as unimpressed by Gantz asa politician. It is the lot of former generals to become clueless politicians. Author Susan Heitler has an interesting take on Gantz: "Strong leaders explain their viewpoints in a way that paints clear pictures for listeners of where they stand on issues, why, and what they aim to do to address these concerns. "Gantz does the opposite. "Gantz tells us what he does not think, what he does not want, and what he will not do." Heitler then goes on to give a fascinating example of bad and good communication: "If I ask you please to get me a book from the bookshelf, and I say, 'Not one with a red cover,' will you know what book to get me? No. I could be wanting any of the fortynon-red books on the shelf. And I will come across therefore as a weak communicator. "If, by contrast, I say, 'Please hand me the book with the green cover,' you know exactly what I am asking for. I have said what I want rather than what I don't want. Ihave painted a clear picture for you. I therefore am more likely to get what I want. That's strength." Netanyahu asks for the book with the green cover. So did Churchill. Gantz does not. What does all this have to do with Iran's nuclear capabilities? Well, I don't see any prophetic passage in Scripture that describes Israel perishing from a fatal strike from an enemy. In fact, I believe Israel is eternal. But we do seein Zechariah at least evidence of a nuclear confrontation of some kind that is coming. We know that the Lord Himself fights for Israel and they emerge victorious. We also know that her military plays a role and, presumably, the political structure. In thepast, Israel has had a seemingly weak leader (Levi Eshkol) and powerful military that repelled the threat. Israel has also had strong leaders during times of war (Ben Gurion). We can take comfort in the fact that Israel's fate does not rest entirely in the hands of fallible human leaders. But someone ordered that strike on Iran. God's glory will not be hidden by either a Netanyahu or a Gantz premiership. I like though hoping that a Bibi will be in charge on that Fateful Day. Is Israel Dismantling Iran's Nuclear Program Through Cyberwarfare? - By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz/Breaking Israel News - https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=4151 A series of explosions in Iran including several at problematic nuclear sites has left the regime giving conflicting answers to difficult questions. It also graphicallyillustrates that even the most secure Iranian facilities are open to foreign attacks. On June 25, a huge explosion rocked Parchin military base about 20 miles southeast of the capital Tehran. Defense ministry spokesman Davoud Abdi told state TV the blasthappened at a gas storage facility in a "public area" of Parchin rather than the military base. It was later revealed that the explosion was the result of a cyberattack, possibly carried out by Israel. In July 2015, there were claims based on satellite imagery that there was activity in the Parchin military complex associated with nuclear weapons. UN and internationalinspectors were denied access to the site and Iran denied the claims saying the satellite photos were fabricated. In 2014, the New York Times reported that a large explosion at the site was a case of sabotage by foreign intelligence agencies. In 2018, Israeli intelligence captured anarchive in Tehran with proving the Parchin site was a key part of Iran's ongoing nuclear weapons research and development program. This archive contained documentary evidence that in 2003 Iran was operating a nuclear weapons program, codenamed the AMAD Plan, which aimed to build five nuclear weaponsand prepare an underground nuclear test site. Parchin was a key part of that program, used for a specialized, difficult to develop, neutron initiator to start the chain reaction in a nuclear explosion. Some of the equipmentis believed to be held ready for later use, potentially when Iran's 2015 nuclear accord with the six world powers expires. At about the same time as the explosion at the Parchin facility, a large explosion at the local power station left half of the city of Tehran without electricity. But that was not the end of Iran's woes. Four days later, an explosion from a gas leak in the Sina Athar Medical Center in northern Tehran killed 19 people. Video postedonline appeared to show more than one explosion. On Thursday, a fire and explosion damaged a centrifuge production plant above Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility at around 2:00 AM local time. Initially, Iranianofficials claimed the destruction was inconsequential, damaging an "industrial shed." At the same time, the government claimed the "industrial shed" was the target of sabotage by enemy nations such as Israel and the US. An unnamed Middle Eastern intelligenceofficial later told the NY Times that damage to the facility was caused by an explosive device placed inside the building. Natanz nuclear facility is generally recognized as Iran's central facility for uranium enrichment with over 19,000 gas centrifuges currently operational and nearly halfof them being fed with uranium hexafluoride. Between 2007-2010 Natanz nuclear power plant was hit by a sophisticated cyberattack that was carried out by German, French, British, American, Dutch and Israeli intelligenceorganizations. The attack used a Stuxnet worm which hampered the operation of the plant's centrifuges and caused damage to them over time. Disaster hit Iran yet again on Saturday as an explosion ripped through the Zargan power plant in the Iranian city of Ahvaz. Iran's IRNA news agency later reported that theblaze was ignited when a transformer exploded. A few hours later on Saturday, IRNA said a chlorine gas leak at a Karun petrochemical center in the city of Mahshahr in southeast Iran. 70 workers.were reported hospitalizedin the incident. Some of the mystery behind the explosions was alleviated in an interview on Sunday with Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz. When Israel Army Radio asked whether Israelhad anything to do with the spate of explosions in Iran, Gantz answered enigmatically, "Not every incident that transpires in Iran necessarily has something to do with us." "All those systems are complex, they have very high safety constraints and I'm not sure they always know how to maintain them," Gantz Three Iranian officials who spoke to Reuters said they thought cyber sabotage had been involved at Natanz, but offered no evidence. Two said Israel could have been behindit. An article by Iran's state news agency IRNA addressed what it called the possibility of sabotage by enemies such as Israel and the United States, although it stopped shortof accusing either directly. Cyberwarfare between Israel and Iran has been carried out for some time with terrifying implications. An unprecedented Iranian cyberattack targeted six facilities in Israel'swater infrastructure on April 24-25 nearly dumped lethal levels of chemicals into the Israeli civilian water system. Fortunately, the attack impacted some systems but did not cause any disruption in the water supply or waste management. The computer system was breached but the cyberattackwas blocked before any damage could be done. Cyber attacks typically target databases or websites. But this attack was the first of its type, attempting to attack a civilian population. Israel responded in kind, targeting Iran's largest port, paralyzing the main economic ingress for several days. All navigation systems of the ships were severely disruptedand everything had to be stopped to avoid collisions between incoming and outgoing vessels. Following increased pressure, Tehran 'could respond, make mistakes,' says ex-defense official - By Yaakov Lappin - https://www.jns.org/following-explosions-tehran-could-respond-make-mistakes-says-ex-israeli-defense-official/ The Iranian regime is facing growing pressure on multiple fronts, which could, together with the latest series of mysterious blasts and fires, push it into responses andmistakes, a former Israeli defense official has said. Col. (res.) Ehud ("Udi") Evental, senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy, at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, told JNS on Sunday that itseems reasonable to believe that the July 2 blast at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility was a deliberate attack, and that the same could possibly be true regarding the June 26 fire near the Parchin military complex at a site linked by some reports to missileproduction. Evental has served in a range of roles during his years in the defense establishment, including former head of the Strategic Planning Unit of the Political-Military andPolicy Bureau of the Israeli Defense Ministry; Israel's intelligence attach� in Washington, D.C.; and multiple positions in the Intelligence and Planning directorates of the Israel Defense Force. In an assessment he published on Monday, Evental wrote, "Until today, the leading assessment was that Iran will not take extreme steps before the U.S. presidential electionsin November. Tehran hopes that the Democratic candidate, [former Vice President Joe] Biden, will win. He has declared his intention to return to the nuclear agreement. At the same time, the diplomatic pressure steps on Tehran-combined with the major distressof the Iranian regime due to the unprecedented economic and health crisis, and strikes in the cybernetic and covert domains-could push Tehran into response maneuvers and mistakes on pressure, and this could create surprises." The diplomatic arena remains key to watch, said Evental, since it is there that the Iranians are most comfortable, and they could take steps to challenge U.N.'s InternationalAtomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "But, of course, they could also escalate kinetically [physical strikes] in the Gulf. They have a range of response options." Other options include cyber-attacks on Israel; disrupting the oil supply by U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf; attacks on Israel or the United States from Syria or Iraq; orterror attacks overseas, he added. 'The sending of messages' Iranian authorities have released accusatory statements regarding the incident at the Natanz site, where Iran was building faster, more advanced centrifuges. Meanwhile, The New York Times cited an unnamed Middle Eastern intelligence official as saying that Israel was behind the July 2 explosion, describing it as a bomb blast. But Iranian officials wrote off the fire near Parchin as an accidental gas explosion. Iran has seen several additional incidents in recent days, including fires at two powerplants-one in Shiraz and the second in Ahvaz. Iranian authorities claimed that the Shiraz fire was caused by a transformer malfunction, while the Ahvaz fire is being investigated. "All of the signs point to the blast in Natanz being a deliberate attack," wrote Evental. According to Evental, allowing Iran to develop advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges is one of the most severe failings of the 2015 nuclear deal. "The development andproduction of advanced centrifuges that have 40 to 50 times more output than those installed today will grant Iran an ability to produce enriched uranium at a fast pace and in big quantities, through a lower number of centrifuges, which will be easier to hide,"he cautioned. Speaking to the 103 FM Israeli radio station, Professor Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, said the timing ofthe reported strikes on sites in Iran is linked to the fact that "Iran has recently increased the pace when it comes to advanced centrifuges, missile launch silos and increased ranges for ballistic missiles." He added that "attempts by authorities in Iran to supply pinpoint explanations for every incident and to place it in a local context add up to nothing, and even regime officialsin Iran are formulating a different explanation, which points an accusatory finger at Israel and its capabilities in the cyber domain." Rabi said "when it comes to Iran, run by the ayatollahs and the Iranian Republican Guards Corps, there is no other way to deal with it but through the sending of messageslike these, produced by a penetrating hand that embarrasses the Iranian regime and exposes to it [and no less, to its opposers] the gaps in the ability to function and the information at its disposal. In light of the existing information, we have no choicebut to assume that this will be continued." War Drums - Iran & Israel On Brink Of Conflict - By Michael Snyder/End of the American Dream - https://www.prophecynewswatch.com/article.cfm?recent_news_id=4161 Over the past several weeks, a series of "mystery explosions" has happened at very strategically sensitive locations inside Iran, and it has become obvious that what we are witnessing is notjust a bunch of random accidents. For years, the Israeli government has pledged that the Iranians will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and several of the sites where the mystery explosions have taken place havedirect connections to Iran's nuclear program. For example, there was a very large explosion at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility on July 2nd, and it is being reported that some officials believe that this explosion was causedby a "powerful bomb". The following comes from the Jerusalem Post... Israel was behind an explosion and fire at Iran's Natanz nuclear complex caused by a "powerful bomb," a Middle Eastern intelligence official with knowledge of the incident told The New YorkTimes on Monday. A member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps confirmed to the Times that an explosive was used in the incident as well. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity. Of course there have been several other "mystery explosions" as well, and there is speculation that "computer viruses similar to the Stuxnet virus" may have been involved in at least someof the blasts... Five recent explosions in Iran may have been caused by computer viruses similar to the Stuxnet virus that disabled Iranian centrifuges in 2010. Two of the blasts took place at power plants, one at a missile research, development and production site, one at a new uranium enrichment centrifuge center, and the last (if it can be consideredpart of the attacks) in downtown Tehran at a medical facility that could have been a cover for nuclear operations such as a hidden command center. It has become clear that the Trump administration does not intend to take military action to stop Iran's nuclear program, so the Israeli government has been forced into a position where itmust make a very tough choice. Either Israel must be willing to accept Iran as a nuclear power or Israel must do something to stop it from happening. At this point, it has been confirmed that the "industrial shed" that was destroyed during the explosion at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility "was in fact a new site for assembling centrifuges",and that would definitely be a logical target for the Israelis to hit. When asked about the "mystery explosions", the following is what Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz had to say about them... When Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz was asked if Israel had anything to do with "mysterious explosions," he reportedly told Israel Radio: "Not every incident that transpires in Irannecessarily has something to do with us." "All those systems are complex, they have very high safety constraints and I'm not sure they always know how to maintain them," he said, according to Reuters. Obviously that is not a denial. Meanwhile, it is also being reported that the Mossad has "thwarted a series of planned Iranian attacks on Israeli embassies"... Israeli spy agency Mossad claims it has recently thwarted a series of planned Iranian attacks on Israeli embassies around the world. The intelligence bureau has halted 'terrorist' plans in Europe and elsewhere, according to a report by Hebrew-language broadcaster Channel 12 which said that Israel's arch-enemy Iran was behindthe plots. The Iranians are becoming increasingly frustrated by the success of Israeli covert operations, and they want to find ways to strike back. Embassies are typically easy targets, but thankfullythe Mossad has apparently been one step ahead of all Iranian efforts to target embassies so far. Needless to say, all of this is happening at a time when tensions in the entire region are rapidly coming to a boil. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps insisting that he is about to move forward with his plan to to annex portions of Judea and Samaria, and if that happens there will inevitablybe a violent response by the Palestinians. In fact, the Times of Israel is reporting that "Fatah and Hamas are in agreement that there should be a popular uprising if the controversial plan goes ahead"... An adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned Saturday there was a possibility of a third intifada if the Israeli government goes ahead with its plan to annex parts ofthe West Bank. The Kan public broadcaster reported that Nabil Shaath told the Arabic-language arm of the France 24 network that Palestinian rivals Fatah and Hamas are in agreement that there should be apopular uprising if the controversial plan goes ahead. And the truth is that rocket fire has already started. On Sunday, Israeli planes hit targets in the Gaza Strip after "a barrage of rocket fire into southern Israel"... Israeli aircraft struck targets in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday following a barrage of rocket fire into southern Israel. No casualties were reported on either side. In a statement, the Israeli military said attack helicopters and fighter jets struck "underground infrastructure" belonging to Gaza's ruling Hamas terrorist group. Earlier Sunday, the army said three rockets were fired by Gaza terrorists toward Israel, setting off air-raid sirens. It said one of the rockets was intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defensesystem; according to Channel 12 TV the other two landed in open areas. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket fire. A number of armed terrorist groups operate in Gaza. The bottom line is that the Middle East has been on the precipice of a major war for years, and it certainly isn't going to take much to push things over the edge. If the Iranians do not stop their nuclear program, the Israelis are going to continue to hit them, and that will eventually spark a war. And if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with his plan to annex portions of Judea and Samaria, that is almost certain to spark a war too. We have reached such a critical moment, and it appears to be just a matter of time before a great conflict erupts.