Iran's Air Force is on alert after the country's president envisaged major regional developments in the wake of the Israeli raids on Gaza.

The chief Iranian Air Force Commander Brigadier General Hassan Shah-Safi said on Wednesday that the ongoing critical situation in the Middle East has prompted the Iranian military to take necessary measures to ensure readiness in the event of the country becoming the target of an offensive.

Top Neo-Con John Bolton told Fox News yesterday that the conflict in Gaza could lead to a U.S. attack on Iran as the former U.S. ambassador to the UN exploited the crisis to propagandize for a new war.

Israel's envoy to the U.S., Sallay Meridor, on Tuesday blamed Iran for the situation in Gaza.

"What you see in Gaza is made by Iran - it's funded by Iran, the terrorists are trained by Iran, it's supplied by Iran, the know-how to create short range rockets is Iranian, he said. "As an octopus, Iran has proxies in region and beyond the region, and at the same time they?re moving towards nuclear weapons."

"This is not a separate Israeli problem or a threat to Israel, this is very well-connected to the threat in Mumbai, Be'er Sheva, or God forbid, NYC, and we can defeat it only if we stand together determined not to let those terrorists to kill citizens and destroy our way of life. You must act against a terror if you want to give peace a chance," he said, adding: "We are making efforts to make sure that whatever humanitarian aid wants to get to Gaza will get into Gaza."

President Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that the fierce Israeli air assault on Gaza, which “aims to root out Hamas and the Palestinians”, would only lead to the “disintegration of the Israeli regime”.

“Committing genocide against innocent people will only lead to the gradual disintegration of the regime,” said the Iranian president in his address to the country’s Majlis (parliament).

Israel has rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the four-day bombardment of Gaza “the first of several stages”, suggesting that the conflict is far from over.

Hundreds of Iranian radicals stormed the British compound in Tehran last night, replacing the Union flag with a Palestinian one in protest against Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

British officials will be assessing whether the security breach, unprecedented in recent years, was an isolated incident or presages further violent demonstrations.

Iran has set up a court to try Israelis for its air attacks on Gaza and is ready to try in absentia any people who Tehran says have committed crimes, a judiciary official said on Tuesday.

Iran's official news agency says dozens of hardline students have broken into the British Embassy residence in Tehran.

The IRNA agency says the students accuse Britain of supporting Israel's air assault on the Gaza Strip.

According to the agency, the students stormed the compound Tuesday evening and pulled down the British flag.

IRNA says the students then hoisted a Palestinian flag at compound's entrance before police forced them to leave.

Among the many negative consequences of the Second Lebanon War in summer 2006 was the distraction it provided from Iran's nuclear program.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree to Muslims around the world on Sunday, ordering them to defend Palestinians against Israel's attacks on Gaza, state television said.

"All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world's pious people are obliged to defend the defenceless women, children and people in Gaza in any way possible. Whoever is killed in this legitimate defense is considered a martyr," state television quoted Khamenei as saying in a statement.

Stuart Littlewood applauds Britain’s Channel 4 TV for screening Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Christmas message and notes the speed with which Israel’s stooges in the UK Parliament, Foreign Office and elsewhere raced with one another to condemn the broadcast.

In a recorded message to air Christmas Day on Britain's Channel 4, Ahmadinejad praises Christianity but goes on to say that if Jesus returned to Earth, "he would fight against the tyrannical policies of prevailing global economic and political systems."

Indeed, it has all the hallmarks of the typical fear-mongering all have come to know all-too-well in recent years featuring a paranoid Zionist military commander working for a notoriously paranoid nation and warning of the next “holocaust” if everyone does not immediately stop what they are doing, pay strict attention and follow the prescribed course of action as laid down by the Jewish state.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will deliver a Christmas Day broadcast on Britain's Channel 4 television, occupying a slot used to provide an often controversial counterpoint to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional annual message, the station said Wednesday.

In his recorded message, Ahmadinejad offers seasonal greetings to Christians and says he believes that if Jesus were alive, he would "stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers," an apparent reference to the United States and its allies.

Via a statement by its military-technical cooperation agency, Russia once again denied that it intended to supply the S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Iran, a denial it has repeated throughout the week over persistent Israeli concerns and comments from Iranian officials suggesting that the agreement had already been completed.

State Department says US has 'repeatedly made clear at senior levels of the Russian government that we would strongly oppose the sale of the S-300' to Tehran.

The budget will decide whether Israel will seriously consider a military option against Iran. A decision focusing on defense and deterrance will mean that Israel has given up on attacking Iran. The dilemma becomes more serious in the context of economic recession, which limits the government's ability to expand the defense budget.

It is hard to tell exactly what is going on, but Russia and Iran seem to be bracing for a countermove in the event of the Obama administration pressing ahead with the present US policy to isolate them or cut them out from their "near abroad".

As reported earlier this week, Israel’s Major General Amos Gilad has met with top Russian officials to pressure them to back off a reported plan to sell Iran the S-300, their most advanced air defense system.

Taking a different tack than previous comments on the potential sale, Maj-Gen. Gilad suggested that the delivery of the system “can help Iran wipe Israel off the face of earth.” Exactly how they would do that, given their purely defensive nature, is unclear, but it would certainly make a planned Israeli attack on Iran far less convenient.

Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu warned Thursday that "a terribly dangerous threshold will be crossed" if Iran obtains nuclear weapons, and urged world leaders to make sure it does not happen.

An Israeli envoy urged Russia on Friday not to sell weapons to Iran that could be used to attack the Jewish state, a news agency reported.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is warning that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, it could try to attack the United States.

Barak said the world should press Iran to stop it from building nuclear weapons.

Russia is currently fulfilling a contract to deliver S-300 air defence systems to Iran, RIA news agency quoted confidential sources as saying on Wednesday.

Russia is currently fulfilling a contract to deliver S-300 air defence systems to Iran, RIA news agency quoted confidential sources as saying on Wednesday.

Quoting unnamed sources, RIA said on Wednesday that Russia and Iran were holding talks on sales of medium-range air defence systems.

"Russia's military and technical cooperation with Iran has a positive impact on stability in this region," RIA quoted Alexander Fomin, deputy head of Russia's Federal Military Technical Cooperation Service, as saying on Wednesday.

The War Party constantly declares that negotiations with Iran will fail, implying that the U.S. must attack Iran at some point. Even George W. Bush decided that was not a wise idea. But if giving up uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technology are going to be the subjects of Obama's negotiations with Iran "without any preconditions," they will indeed fail, because unless a puppet government is installed in Tehran, no Iranian government, regardless of its political leanings, would dare to do so. In that case, what will Obama do?

Israel plans to send one of its most senior security officials to Moscow tomorrow to express concern over Russia's decision to renew contacts with Iran for the sale of advanced anti-aircraft missiles, Haaretz has learned.

The weapons sales are a very sensitive issue for Israeli diplomats, who view it as a form of leverage that Russia is trying to apply on Washington. Some in the Foreign Ministry believe Russia has decided to move forward with the deal in order to demonstrate a hard line ahead of Barack Obama's entry into the White House as U.S. President.

Iran has documents to prove the United States and Britain, the Islamic Republic's two Western arch foes, back a group that killed 16 abducted Iranian police officers, state radio reported on Saturday.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei in a telephone interview with Al Hayat newspaper has reaffirmed that Iran’s nuclear activities are “legal”.

Iran ceased any efforts to design a nuclear warhead or covertly enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels in 2003 and has no current nuclear weapons program. Those were the conclusions of last year’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran.

U.S. president-elect will offer Israel a strategic pact designed to fend off any nuclear attack on the Jewish state by Iran, an Israeli newspaper reports.

A senior Russian diplomat says that even if Iran sought to make a nuclear weapon, it does not have the necessary "means" to do so.

An EU court ruled Thursday for the third time that European Union countries must stop freezing the funds of an Iranian opposition group that has been placed on the bloc's list of terrorist organizations.

The ruling dealt another blow to EU anti-terrorist efforts, notably the way it draws up its blacklist of banned groups and individuals.

John Bolton – the neocons’ neocon – laments that Bush (and Israel) did not have the gumption to confront Iran militarily - yet a third war in Asia. Bolton pontificates – with, of course, no evidence – that Iran will now become a nuclear military power, says Robert Dreyfuss.

The presidents of Iran and Ecuador pledged an expansion of diplomatic and other relations on Saturday, the latest sign of closer ties between Tehran and leftist South American governments that have annoyed Washington.

A familiar coalition of hawks, hardliners and neo-cons expects Obama's proposed talks with Iran to fail - and they're already proposing an escalating set of measures instead. Some are meant to occur alongside any future talks. These include steps to enhance coordination with Israel, tougher sanctions against Iran, and a region-wide military buildup of US strike forces, including the prepositioning of military supplies within striking distance of that country.

Having such a supply of low-enriched uranium would give Iran a "break-out" capability, if Tehran opted to pursue nuclear arms, but the nation would still need to enrich the lower-grade uranium to weapon-grade levels.

“We could not risk an operation which would only partially succeed," one defence official told The Times.

"That would leave us open to a nuclear attack from Iran’s remaining weapons stock. Israel would likely need the support, the backing, of forces from a Western ally to successfully carry out the operation,” he said.

The IDF is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

What, exactly, does president-elect Barack Obama's mild-mannered choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, former senator Tom Daschle, have to do with neo-conservatives who want to bomb Iran?

Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Sunday called for closer cooperation between Iran, India, and Pakistan in their efforts to bring back “tranquility” to the war-torn Afghanistan.

“Resolving the current crisis in Afghanistan requires extensive cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran, India and Pakistan. This cooperation can bring tranquility to the region,” Rafsanjani told visiting Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

He said the situation of foreign troops in Afghanistan is similar to that of the Soviet army in 1979-1989 war.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday called for developing an alternative economy in the face of the “total failure” of socialism and capitalism.

The Russian state company building Iran's first atomic power station said on Friday it would increase personnel at the plant by at least 25 percent as it readies to start up the nuclear reactor.

This new phase of the project -- which involves readying the nuclear reactor for start up -- requires that staff be increased to more than 2000 workers from the current 1600, it said.

There is no shortage of US officials making broad statements accusing the Iranian government of attempting to develop a nuclear weapon, but after last week’s International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran yielded no interesting allegations to latch onto, US Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte has tried to novel strategy of accusing Iran of something it is known to be doing and then speculating about the future.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ruled out on Wednesday the possibility of sending diplomats to Iran, saying the issue would be left to the next administration to deal with.

If Israel were to attack Iran's alleged nuclear weapons facilities, its bomber aircraft would most likely fly through Turkish air space, a prominent neo-conservative U.S. columnist has said.

The outgoing Israeli leader, who held farewell talks with U.S. President George W. Bush Monday, stopped short, in a briefing to reporters, of making any threat to strike Iran.

"I can't recall that anyone in the (U.S.) administration, including in the last couple of days, advised me or any of my official representatives not to take any action that we will deem necessary for the fundamental security of the state of Israel, and that includes Iran," Olmert said.

Iranian state radio says an alleged espionage network with links to Israel's Mossad spy agency has been dismantled.

Monday's radio report featured the chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari. He says the Guards' intelligence unit recently discovered the network.

Jafari says the alleged network was trying to collect information on Iran's nuclear program and the Guards' military operations as well as details on military and security officials.

He says equipment was confiscated. He didn't specify who belonged to the network or whether arrests were made.

Switzerland is refusing to toe the West’s line on sanctions against Iran – and Israel is up in arms

A former Israeli commander says the West must consider assassinating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to halt Tehran's nuclear program.

Former Israeli Army Chief of Staff Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon told the Australian daily The Sydney Morning Herald that the West should consider all options to stop the Islamic Republic's nuclear drive, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Sunday.

"We have to confront the Iranian revolution immediately," Ya'alon said. "There is no way to stabilize the Middle East today without defeating the Iranian regime. The Iranian nuclear program must be stopped."