New York Times report.

A large majority of Iranian lawmakers, angered over the Obama administration's new nuclear weapons policy that conspicuously makes Iran and North Korea possible targets, urged their government on Sunday to formally complain to the United Nations in a petition that called the United States a warmonger and threat to world peace.

Patrick Martin on wsws.org.

The new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) issued by the Pentagon Tuesday is being hailed by the Obama administration's apologists as a step towards global nuclear disarmament. It is nothing of the kind. The document lays out a rationale that would justify the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state for the first time since the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Iran and North Korea are singled out as potential targets.

Philip Giraldi on Antiwar.com. The report he refers to is here (PDF)

It all adds up to a toxic brew. If the US refuses to cooperate in bombing Iran conventionally, Israel might well accept the view that the Iranian nuclear program can only be destroyed by using other nuclear weapons. Tel Aviv, controlling its own nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver the bombs on target, would be able to stage such an attack unilaterally. An increasingly isolated Israel headed by reactionary and irrational politicians who are influenced by their own sense of racial superiority just might decide that the gamble is worth it. It would be a very bad decision for Israel, Iran, and for the United States.

BBC report.

Iran's president has unveiled new "third-generation" centrifuges that its nuclear chief says can enrich uranium much faster than current technology.

The centrifuges would have separation power six times that of the first generation, Ali Akbar Salehi said in a speech marking National Nuclear Day.

PressTV report.

Iran said on Friday that it has designed and tested the country's third generation of domestically-built centrifuges as the nation celebrated its nuclear energy achievements.

The machine is capable of spinning 900 times per second and producing 10 kilograms of UF6 in a year.

Juan Cole comments (Informed Comment).

The audience at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference is said to have gone wild with applause when Liz Cheney announced the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu not to attend next week's nuclear summit, called by President Barack Obama.

A person gets a little tired of pointing to the hypocrisy of the American right wing, which would have been up in arms if Democrats had sided with a foreign head of state against the American president, and, indeed, would have charged treason. The thing to remember is that to right wingers, only Republican presidents are really presidents. Democratic Presidents are always coded as usurpers. The politically immature are like 5 year olds who pick up their marbles and go home when they aren't winning

Ted Daley on Antiwar.com.

Although Gates said the NPR did pledge that America would not attack or threaten non-nuclear weapon states with nuclear weapons, he indicated that states "not in compliance with the NPT," specifically naming North Korea and Iran, had been placed by the drafters of the NPR in an entirely different category. For these states, he said, three times, "all options are on the table."

Such words can have only one meaning. The Obama Administration has now said to North Korea and Iran, "If you do not do what we tell you to do, we may launch a nuclear first strike upon you."

The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

As we have pointed out, it is simply not possible any more--if it were ever possible at some point in the past--to achieve Israeli-Palestinian or Arab-Israeli peace in a manner that excludes and marginalizes the Islamic Republic and its regional allies. Rather, today, the link between Iran and Palestine runs in the opposite direction: the United States needs a better and more productive relationship with the Islamic Republic, in part, because it will be impossible to achieve Arab-Israeli peace absent U.S.-Iranian rapprochement.

The Leveretts write.

Tomorrow--Tuesday, April 6, 2010--the Obama Administration will proclaim, as a matter of declaratory policy, that the United States claims the prerogative to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic of Iran, even as Iran remains a non-nuclear-weapons state. The Administration will make this declaration as part of its much anticipated Nuclear Posture Review, which will be issued two days before President Obama and Russian President Medvedev sign a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

Reuters report.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has voiced scepticism over the effectiveness of any further sanctions against Iran in the dispute over its nuclear programme, saying he still supported a diplomatic solution.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro published on Tuesday, Erdogan criticised countries pushing for another round of sanctions in the Security Council, of which Turkey is a non-permanent member.

Mark Hosenball on his Newsweek blog.

While U.S. and European officials are pleased that China has become "engaged" in United Nations Security Council discussions over new economic sanctions on Iran, their expectations are modest at best as to what those negotiations will actually produce.

The most the Security Council talks are likely to produce is "something quite limited," said a European diplomat, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive issue. Any new sanctions regime likely to meet the approval of China--a major Iranian trading partner which has long resisted the imposition of new sanctions on the ayatollah's regime--would likely be "more a political gesture" and less a series of measures likely to put a real bite on the Iranian theocracy, the diplomat said.

The Leveretts' latest article. Direct link to PDF.

Relations between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran need to be analysed and understood not only in terms of their bilateral dynamics, but also in their strategic context. Broadly speaking, the Middle East today is deeply divided between two camps --- a reality that some commentators describe as a new regional "Cold War".

Guardian report.

Barack Obama has urged Beijing to "ratchet up the pressure" on Iran over its nuclear programme after a breakthrough for the US administration in persuading China to agree to talks on fresh sanctions against Tehran.

Obama told CBS news that Iran was increasingly diplomatically isolated and that international unity was essential to ensuring it did not develop nuclear weapons.

wall Street Jornal report.

An Iranian firm closely linked to Tehran's nuclear program acquired special hardware for enriching uranium, despite sanctions intended to keep such equipment out of Iran, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

In recent weeks, the officials said, an Iranian procurement firm obtained critical valves and vacuum gauges made by a French company that until December was owned by U.S. industrial conglomerate Tyco International. The French and U.S. firms said they knew nothing of the case.

David Kenner in Foreign Policy.

When it comes to sanctions, there is also likely more latitude to Turkey's position than it lets on. By taking a firm line now, Ankara may hope to prevent a resolution on sanctions from coming to the floor of the U.N. Security Council. However, if the United States can avoid vetoes from Russia and China, few expect Turkey to stand in the way. "All options for Turkey are undesirable" on Iran, noted Soli Ozel, a professor at Istanbul's Bilgi University and a frequent commentator. "But if push comes to shove, Turkey will side with its allies."

This has less to do with principle than Turkey's post-Republic orientation toward the West. Breaking with the United States and Europe over such a crucial issue would represent a fundamental split with the Western alliance, a step few think Turkey is willing to take. In this sense, Turkey appears less as an assertive, independent actor in the Middle East and more as a developing power caught between two stronger poles.

Gary Sick points to this article in Haaretz.

The public discussion in Israel about a nuclear Iran is simplistic, inadequate, confused and confusing. It reflects to some degree our own biases. We come from a culture of national security in which nuclear opacity has been exploited to the hilt to create a specific model of deterrence. The result is that when we look at Iran we see ourselves: how we would behave in a similar situation. But Iran is not Israel exactly, and the Israeli experience does not necessarily reflect Iran's behavior. On the contrary, it leads to systematic errors when making assessments.