China Confidential

Foreign Confidential....

Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar Sunday warned of a "limitless" response to any military strike.

"Iran will not begin any conflict but will punish any aggressor with force. With determination and using all the options -- without limit in time and space -- we will give a destructive response to any hostile action," Najar said.

His comments came after the UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei warned on Saturday that an attack on Iran would turn the region into a "ball of fire."

The comments confirm our analysis--namely, that an attack on Iran must be swift and crushing. Every missile site must be wiped out, along with virtually the entire Revolutionary Guard, in order to prevent the monstrous mullahocracy from attacking Israeli cities and American troops, bases and ships in the Persian Gulf.

Diplomacy Failed

Israeli parliament foreign affairs and defence committee chairman Tsahi Hanegbi said on Saturday that Western diplomatic efforts to halt Iran's nuclear programme had failed and "next year and the year after that will be crucial."

In related news, the suspected Syrian nuclear facility that Israel bombed last September had in fact been built by Syria with North Korean assistance in order to facilitate Iran's nuclear program, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel.

The magazine cited intelligence reports that confirmed the site was a secret nuclear reactor, where North Korean engineers were aiding Iran in producing plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.

Iran has managed to enrich a significant amount of uranium, but had no experience with plutonium, and could not risk having the North Koreans come to Iran to teach them there.

Iranian plans to construct plutonium producing heavy-water reactors are viewed with great suspicion by the international community.