Israel praised an International Atomic Energy Agency report released on Thursday that says Iran may be developing a nuclear warhead.

"The new IAEA report deals more sharply and clearly than its predecessors with the military aspects of Iran's nuclear program," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Friday.

Noting that the report is the first during the term of new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano of Japan, Israel said it "establishes that the agency has a lot of trustworthy information about the past and present activities that testify to the military tendencies of the Iranian program."

Among these activities were the recently declared decisions to enrich uranium to 20 percent and the continued construction of the Qom nuclear facility, kept secret until it was discovered by Western intelligence agencies and made public in recent months.

The UN nuclear agency report suggested for the first time that Teheran had either resumed such work or had never stopped when US intelligence thought it did....

Yet the Fantasy-Based Policymaking continues.

The final day of CPAC 2010 (Saturday 2-20) did not disappoint.  An array of conservative heavy-hitters, panel discussions and film offerings kept things interesting and conference attendees engaged.  The exchange of ideas and the inherently intellectual exercise that is conservatism was fully in evidence.

Things got off to a rousing start with a short but passionate speech by Andrew Breitbart, best-known for his websites BigHollywood.com, BigGovernment.com and most recently Bigjournalism.com. Breitbart’s message was simple and direct: The so-called “mainstream media” can no longer distort and suppress the truth with impunity.  There is now a rapidly expanding new media extant which is not afraid to tell the truth and to expose the lies of the Left.  This is all-out war – and we are coming after you when you tell lies to the American people and attempt to destroy honorable individuals who dare to expose the non-politically-correct truth.  Be scared ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC.  Be afraid New York Times.  You no longer control the narrative and we WILL hit back and hit back hard when you engage in personal destruction and obfuscation.

Next I attended a screening of one of Citizens United’s newest films: Atomic Jihad: Ahmadinejad’s Coming War for Islamic Revival.  About 90 minutes in length, this documentary provides important insights into why Iran’s Islamist regime is pursuing nuclear weapons technology, and how the Obama administration’s policies are enabling it.  The film includes a detailed overview of Islam’s history from 622 to the present, including its many territorial conquests and setbacks.  It explores why Muslims consider Israel to be an intolerable blight upon Arab territory which must be destroyed.  As with all of Citizens United’s productions I have seen, Atomic Jihad is very well-produced and conveys vital information in a compelling and accessible manner.  You can read more about Citizens United and all their films here.

At noon, Ann Coulter packed the house and delivered a speech consisting primarily of one-liners, followed by a short Q&A session.  Some of her best lines:

“Well, what a difference a year makes!  This time last year according to the media the Republicans were finished, dead, moribund – it was the beginning of the Democrats’ thousand-year Reich….The fact that a Republican is now in former Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat must have him rolling in his grave – probably spilling his drink.”

“I might be in favor of national healthcare if it would require all Democrats to get their heads examined.”

“(Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings) has even written the introduction to a book titled Queering Elementary Education…and yes, as some of you may have guessed, it’s a pop-up book.”

“Bill Clinton was recently rushed to the hospital with chest pains.When the doctors asked what his symptoms were,  he said he felt like 2 interns were sitting on his chest.  He’s fine now, he just had to have a stent surgically inserted into his boxers once they got the interns out. While he was in the hospital he had some minor surgery, while he was there he had Sidney Blumenthal’s lips surgically removed from his buttocks.”

“CNN called the opponents of big government tea-baggers, which is the gayest term I’ve ever heard on CNN other than Anderson Cooper.”

“Ironically since Obama was elected, for the first time in my life, I’m sometimes not proud of my country!”

“You’ve been a great crowd, especially since you’re all paid shills for the insurance companies.  Anyway, thanks for being here, Keith Olbermann is a girl, God Bless America, and remember – Keith Olbermann is a girl.”

Later in the afternoon I attended a panel discusion: Saving Freedom from Enemies of Sovereignty.  It featured Michael Farris of Patrick Henry College, Wendy Wright from Concerned Women for America, Steven Groves of The Heritage Foundation, Jeff Gaynor from Americans for Soevreignty, and Frank Gaffney, Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy.  The discussion focused on the ways in which the Left uses United Nations committees and resolutions to devise trans-nationalist laws which violate the traditional concept of national sovereignty.  All the panelists were articulate and offered unique perspectives on this issue.

The final highlight of the day was of course Glenn Beck’s closing speech.  In an address lasting about an hour, Beck captivated the packed hall with his trademark mixture of humor, history lesson and passionate articulation of conservative principles.  He referred to progressivism as a disease existing in both parties.  He called it a cancer in the system which must be removed.

Beck reminded the audience that he has been predicting the coming of an economic holocaust for about 4 years now.  He believes that the worst is still ahead for us, but also that we will triumph over the coming adversity.  He also spoke of his personal struggle with alcoholism and the lessons it taught him – lessons, he said – that are similar to the ones America must re-learn.  Finally, in an emotional and passionate appeal to first principles and doing the difficult but honorable things necessary to restore American greatness, Beck invoked Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” theme, ending with tears in his eyes.  The speech was a fitting conclusion to this three-day celebration of America’s founding principles.  You can view it in its entirety here.

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog fears Iran may be working now to develop a nuclear-armed missile, the agency said on Thursday, throwing independent weight behind Western suspicions of an active Iranian weapons program.

In unusually blunt language surfacing under new chief Yukiya Amano, an International Atomic Energy Agency report for the first time suggested Iran was actively chasing nuclear weapons capability rather than merely having done so in the past.

The IAEA seemed to be cautiously going public with suspicions arising from a classified agency analysis leaked in part last year which concluded that Iran has already honed explosives expertise relevant to a workable nuclear weapon.

The report also confirmed Iran had produced its first, small batch of uranium enriched to a higher purity -- 20 percent.

Both developments will intensify pressure on Iran to prove it is not covertly bent on "weaponising" enrichment by allowing unfettered access for IAEA inspectors and investigators, something it rejects in protest at U.N. sanctions.

The United States is already leading a push for the U.N. Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran because of suspicions that it may be developing nuclear weapons, and has received declarations of support from Russia, which has until now been reluctant to expand sanctions.

Tehran says its nuclear program is meant only to yield electricity or radio-isotopes for agriculture or medicine. It took a diametrically opposing view of the report's conclusions.

"The IAEA's new report confirmed Iran's peaceful nuclear activities and the country's non-deviation toward military purposes," Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the state news agency IRNA.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the United States did not understand why Iran had refused to "come to the table and engage constructively" over its nuclear program, adding: "You have to draw some conclusions from that." [...]

IAEA's new chief, Yukiya Amano, is seen as more inclined to confront Iran than his predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei, who retired on December 1.

"Now we see from (available intelligence) that certain activities may have continued after 2004," said a senior official close to the IAEA. "We want to find out from Iran what they've had to do with these nuclear explosive-related activities."

The U.S. director of National Intelligence concluded last year that Iran would not be technically able to devise a nuclear weapon before 2013. But a new intelligence estimate is due soon....

Caught out, he engages in a little "war is deceit" action. "Atomic bomb allegations 'make us puke,' Ahmadinejad says (Roundup)," from Deutsche Presse Agentur, December 22 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Tehran - Allegations that Iran is seeking to make atomic bombs 'make us ... just puke,' President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday.

'These constant allegations against Iran have become an unfunny joke and make us and our nation just puke,' Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Shiraz in southern Iran.

'If we wanted to make an atomic bomb, then we would have been courageous enough to say that we were doing it,' the president said in the speech, carried live by the news network Khabar.

He added that Iran was engaged only in a peaceful nuclear programme and would not allow any country, 'neither the United States nor the US servants,' to interfere in Iran's internal affairs and deprive it of its legitimate nuclear rights.

'If they come up with documents [regarding secret Iranian military programmes], we do not even look at them, and if they make deadlines [for making concessions in the nuclear dispute], then we in return will make deadlines for them to correct their policies,' the president said.

Ahmadinejad was mainly referring to documents disclosed last week by the Times newspaper claiming Tehran was working on a four-year plan to make a nuclear bomb.

The president and the Foreign Ministry had rejected the report, saying the documents were fabricated....

Uh huh. And we should take this genocidal thug's word for it, and go back to sleep.

The decade-long attempt to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons may have entered the final round on Sunday when Iran announced to the world it intended to build ten new uranium enrichment sites.

“This is really a statement of defiance,” a former senior Israeli atomic official told The Wall Street Journal, “telling the world we are going to go ahead with our nuclear program.”

The Iranian government’s statement came only two days after the world’s major powers condemned Iran’s nuclear program, which, despite Iranian denials, is believed to be producing nuclear weapons. China and Russia joined the United States, France, Britain and Germany to support an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution ordering Iran to stop construction on the uranium enrichment plant near Qom, a secret facility whose existence President Obama revealed last September.

Due to the international criticism, Iranians are now threatening to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and reduce cooperation with the IAEA, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog. North Korea is the only other country ever to have pulled out of the treaty.

According to news reports, the Iranian decision to thumb their nose at the U.N. and world opinion and construct new nuclear fuel refinement facilities was made Sunday evening at a cabinet meeting chaired by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad. The Iranians will start work on five of the new sites within two months and at an unspecified future time on the remaining five.

It is believed the reason for the extra facilities is to allow Iran to build more nuclear bombs. One military analyst says U.N. weapons inspectors and the U.S. Department of Defense are of the opinion Iran currently has enough enriched fuel for one nuclear weapon. Iran would like to have several more in order to present itself as a “credible threat.”

The Iranian announcement signals a defeat for President Obama’s ‘soft’ approach towards the Islamic Republic’s leadership. In an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite television network last January, Obama said Iran’s leaders would find the extended hand of diplomacy if they “unclenched” their fists.

“As I said in my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us,” Obama said.

But as early as March there were already signs that Iran was in no mood to unclench and drop the rock it was holding in the form of its nuclear weapons program. That month, President Obama released a video, wishing the Iranians a happy New Year, which, in Iran, falls on the first day of spring. In return for his friendly overture, the American president received from the Iranian government nothing but a demand for apologies for America’s past transgressions, real or imagined, against Iran.

Sunday’s statement simply proves what most have suspected all along: One cannot talk to the Iranian leaders and that they are simply stringing out negotiations to complete their nuclear arms program. And the fact the Iranians still celebrate the 1979 American embassy seizure every November, a flagrant and criminal breach of international law, shows they do not want to talk to the United States in particular and are still willing to flout international norms.

Essentially, Iran’s leaders are religious fanatics who believe they have been chosen by God to establish a Shiite hegemony over the majority Sunni Islamic world and then, hopefully, over the whole planet. Of the world’s one billion Muslims, about 220 million are minority Shiites, of whom the largest number, about 62 million, live in Iran. Pakistan contains the next largest community of Shiites at 33 million, while India is third with 30 million and Iraq fourth with 18 million.

Iran’s mullah regime sees possessing nuclear weapons as instrumental to its plans for world domination. Nuclear arms would also add significant muscle to Iran’s security in a part of the world where any sign of weakness or vulnerability could be dangerous. Iranians have not forgotten how Iraq took advantage of Iran’s revolutionary turmoil to launch a devastating eight-year war against it in 1980. And like Russia with its former Eastern European satellites, Iran would also use nuclear weapons to intimidate weaker neighbors.

The Asia Times columnist, Spengler (a literary pseudonym), gives another reason why Iran is not afraid to seek confrontation over its nuclear weapons program. Iranian demographics have sunk to West German levels of about 1.6 children per woman, which would make waging a war in 20 years impossible. Iran currently has enough young men to embark on a military adventure, whether internally for nuclear weapons acquisition or externally against the Sunni world, while in twenty years it won’t.

Iran’s heavily-subsidized economy is also imploding. Like Argentina with its 1982 Falkland Islands’ invasion and Germany in 1939, economically it is now or never for Iran to make a grab for the ring. In a year’s time it may be too late, especially if oil prices drop dramatically again. Besides, again like Argentina, a military adventure would probably cause those Iranian people actively opposed to the regime to put aside their economic and political grievances and rally around the country’s leadership in nationalistic pride.

But if Iran wants a fight, it will most likely get one. The Islamic regime’s Holocaust-denying leadership has openly stated it wants to erase Israel from the map. Facing such a naked threat to their country’s existence, one military publication states the Israelis are now openly discussing using a missile attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. While Israel’s Jericho missiles can carry nuclear warheads, they also can be equipped with a conventional warhead. An attack by Israeli warplanes is also a possibility.

The Israelis already have American backing for such a strike if negotiations fail, as they appear to have. American Vice-President Joe Biden said in an ABC interview last July America would not prevent an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And since the only other option would be a nuclear-armed Iran, the Israelis will now likely ensure this last round ends in a knockout.